A lot of labels on herbicides for the new herbicide trait technologies have arrived. The label to spray XtendiMax on Xtend soybean and cotton was granted in late November.  The label to apply Engenia to Xtend soybean and cotton was approved ten days ago.  This past Friday the EPA approved the label for Enlist Duo on Enlist crops for Tennessee.

I will be writing a series of blogs on stewardship of these herbicides focusing mainly on Xtend crops as Enlist will be planted on few acres in Tennessee in 2017.  We also put together a 30 minute training module on stewardship of these herbicides as part of the pesticide re-certification that many applicators will take this year.  Also, stewardship of these herbicides will be discussed in full at all the county producer meetings put on by UT Extension.  I highly encourage everyone to attend one of these meetings.

The first of these blogs will focus on utilizing and stewarding the correct herbicides.  Judging from calls there is a lot of uncertainty and in a few cases, some misinformation, out there about XtendiMax and Engenia.  Let’s clear one thing up: XtendiMax is a DGA salt (Clarity) of dicamba with an additive (Vapor Grip) to reduce the volatility.  It is not a premix of glyphosate and dicamba.  Likewise, Engenia is dicamba alone and is not a premix of glyphosate and dicamba. Engenia is a new low volatile (BAPMA) salt formulation of dicamba.  These will be the only formulations that can, or should, be sprayed over Xtend soybeans and cotton.

We have a lot of evidence last year of volatility drift when Banvel and Clarity or generic versions of these herbicides were applied.  It was very apparent last summer that those herbicides have no business being sprayed this summer over Xtend crops.

Moreover, after visiting with several retailers there is really no financial advantage to spraying anything other than XtendiMax or Engenia.  XtendiMax and Engenia will run about $10.00/Acre to apply and the generics will run about $6.00/Acre.  However, when one factors in rebates and incentives from either Monsanto or BASF they are essentially even in cost per acre.  As a result, applying a generic will not save you money but as we saw too often this past summer will cost you a lot of lost sleep at night.

Finally, currently there are no approved surfactants or herbicides that can be tankmixed with XtendiMax or Engenia.  The reason for this is that many commonly used surfactants and herbicides, if tankmixed with those dicamba herbicides, could greatly increase their volatility. The EPA is currently reviewing data on potential tankmix partners.  However, there will likely be few if any tankmix options by April.  One can check daily for new approved tankmix partners at the following websites:

XtendiMax:

xtendimaxapplicationrequirements.com/pages/default.aspx

Engenia:

agproducts.basf.us/campaigns/engenia/tankmixselector/