Bayer CropScience suggests to apply postemergence herbicide

With a number of regions experiencing shorter growing seasons this year because of spring's cool, wet weather; corn growers are paying particular attention to their postemergence herbicide applications.

"The later you plant, the greater your risk for yield loss," said Jeff Springsteen, Bayer CropScience corn and soybean selective herbicides product manager. "The last thing a grower wants or needs is for weed pressure to further jeopardize yields, so growers will have even higher expectations of their herbicides this year. Especially if they didn't have time to make pre-emergence herbicide applications before they started planting."

Laudis herbicide from Bayer CropScience is one of the best postemergence herbicide options for managing grass and broadleaf weeds in corn.

Laudis, which was introduced in 2008, is approved for use on field corn, white corn, seed corn, sweet corn and popcorn. It has a flexible application window from VE up to V8 growth stages in field corn and popcorn, and from VE up to V7 in sweet corn. Laudis also offers a combination seen in few selective herbicides: residual weed control and crop safety.

"There aren't many products that seed corn companies allow to be used on certain corn," said Jon Silsby, retailer, TH Agri-Chemicals, Inc., Union City, Mich. "Plus, we have weed control challenges. Laudis happened to work extremely well against those challenges because seed companies like the crop safety, and growers like the broad-spectrum weed control."

Silsby said wild-proso millet, lambsquarters, velvetleaf and ragweed are the biggest weed concerns of his customers. The residual control provided by Laudis was particularly important when managing lambsquarters, velvetleaf and some grasses.

 
"Laudis worked extremely well on seed corn and popcorn," explained Silsby. "When the weeds were about a half-inch tall, we would get some rain or irrigate, and then we'd see residual activity take down those weeds."

Silsby also said he thinks Laudis is safer on crops than other selective postemergence herbicides he's used. Springsteen credited this crop safety to a proprietary safener that is part of the Laudis formulation.