Around Australia farmers are currently spraying their winter crops for weeds. Spraying in winter often means battling with rain and wondering whether adjuvants are worth the cost.
In this month’s article, we’ll explore how we dramatically increase the rainfastness of an EC herbicide using an adjuvant.
In Part 1 of this series we explained how:
In this article we will review how soil type and soil pH affects the efficacy of trifluralin.
Trifluralin is one of the most widely used herbicides in Australia. Despite it being in use since the 1970s, it is surprising how many myths exist around how it works. Eureka! has conducted dozens of experiments with trifluralin. Over the next couple of newsletters I will share some of our findings with you. In this article I will cover how trifluralin kills weeds, its movement through the soil as a gas, where it is absorbed into the plant and the proportion that is lost to volatilisation and UV degradation. Please note that the scientific methods used in the experiments described here are too lengthy for this article. If you want more information on them please contact me.
In July 2014, the APVMA’s surprise changes to its product registration requirements brought some sections of the agchem industry to its knees. Six months later I am pleased to explain why confidence in product registration has returned.
Australia is the driest continent in the world. Much of its agricultural land is prone to unpredictable rainfall which has an annoying tendency to fall as soon as the spray rig enters the paddock! Even then it is often not a good soak but an intermittent drizzle, which leaves us confused about whether or not a product sprayed will be washed off wasting time and money.
Most foliar applied, agricultural chemical products are designed to either remain on the surface of leaves or to penetrate into them; this does not happen instantaneously. For example, glyphosate takes many hours before the active is safely inside the plant and protected from the elements. While chemicals remain on a leaf surface they are vulnerable to being washed off by rain.
A patent can greatly add to the value of both a product and the business. It frustrates competitors. It gives the patent owner a stronger position when negotiating with customers and it is within the financial reach of almost every company.
Whilst our multinational clients are patent specialists our smaller and medium sized companies grossly underuse them. This is usually due to a lack of knowledge about what patents offer and how to apply for them or because they mistakenly assume that patents are prohibitively expensive. Eureka! AgResearch has eight granted/pending patents. Our staff are inventors on another 12 owned by clients but this number should be over 50. About 80% of patentable ideas were never protected!
Australia is a dry continent and water conservation is critical to our sustainability. Many homes in rural and regional Australia, and quite a few in the big cities, recycle their laundry water by applying it to their lawns and gardens. The problem is that most laundry powders contain a high proportion of salt which can kill or damage plants.
Last year Eureka! MFG opened a dedicated herbicide factory in Melbourne to complement our existing non-herbicide factory at Altona. I asked Liam Flynn, our project manager, to describe the new factory.
“This is a purpose built facility that has six individual modules each with a high capacity, German designed, air filtration system to protect against cross contamination,” was his reply.
My recent article on the use of hard water in spray preparations generated a lot of questions. Most of these were around the order in which products should be added to a spray tank to minimise the interactions between products. This issue relates just as much to organic, plant nutritional and foliar fertilisers products as it does to synthetic pesticides.
About July 2014 the Australian Pesticide and Veterinary Medicines Authority’s (APVMA) introduced severe restrictions on the use of confidential commercial information (CCI) required to access new product registration. This has caused uproar throughout the Australian agchem and veterinary medicine industry. Eureka! AgResearch probably has as much involvement with the APVMA as any company in Australia. At any one time about 30 or more products we have developed are in the process of being registered by our clients. Data and quality scientific arguments have become far more valuable. We have often been complimented by APVMA staff on the quality of the scientific arguments that we compile to support registration applications. With our considerable experience in the use, application, formulation and mode of action of these chemicals, it is little wonder that we can construct convincing arguments.