With the winter wheat drilling window looming large – but potentially still a few weeks away for those growers with a severe black-grass burden – ADAMA has released new data which shows the addition of pendimethalin and/or diflufenican can deliver additional efficacy to some of the UK’s more popular herbicide co-packs offerings.

“As part of ADAMA’s remit to provide beneficial solutions to the problems faced by UK cereals growers, we recently commissioned a series of trials to assess the efficacy of two popular pre-emergence herbicide co-packs to determine how effective they are at controlling difficult grassweeds such as black-grass and ryegrass," said its herbicide technical specialist, Dr Bill Lankford.

The first set of trials – to assess the impact of adding pendimethalin to an alconifen plus flufenacet and diflufenican co-pack – clearly demonstrated the inclusion of Anthem (400g/l pendimethalin) improved black-grass control by reducing heading numbers by an average of 16%, with the benefit ranging from plus 3% to plus 26%.

“Five independent trials also showed that adding pendimethalin as a tank mix partner helped to reduce the variability of black-grass control, with all five trials showing a significant uplift and consistency in protection,” Dr Lankford added.

The trials also indicated that adding diflufenican to a tank mix of cinmethylin, plus pendimethalin, reduced the variability of blackgrass control.

“The addition of diflufenican to the mix also delivered a 10% reduction in heading numbers, when used against flufenacet resistant ryegrass,” Dr Lankford explained.

“What we’ve shown is that the inclusion of an extra active ingredient provided a useful boost to a pre-emergence herbicide co-pack. In a year when fuel and fertiliser costs remain high, and with crop values also remaining elevated, it makes sense for growers to provide crops with the very best levels of weed control, with relatively cheap actives such as pendimethalin and diflufenican offering a viable return on investment,” he added.