03/27/08 New Bayer herbicide gives fast week knockdown

Farm and Ranch March 27, 2008 A new broadleaf herbicide grain growers have available this spring is Huskie Herbicide from Bayer CropScience. Clair Heinbuch, Huskie Product Manager, says the new product is for weed control in spring wheat, winter wheat, barley and even triticale. He says Huskie's claim to fame is that it has a new mode of action, the first in 20 years for broadleaf weed control in cereals. In fact, Heinbuch says Huskie has two modes of action. Heinbuch: "So that is a really good thing from the standpoint of controlling resistance. It is very difficult for a plant to mutate to two different things at the same time. So we think it will help controlling the existing weeds and it will probably prevent the development of resistance to a large degree longer term." Huskie provides control of 50 weeds including ALS resistant kochia, Russian thistle, and prickly lettuce. And Heinbuch says this herbicide is very fact acting, providing a complete weed kill with plants turning brown in five to ten days. Heinbuch: "If you get the right conditions, if you get a pretty good wind blowing by two weeks, you will walk out there and you won't see anything at all so you will wonder why you sprayed, because there wasn't anything there. In that respect you will see fast week knockdown, which is really good for yields. The faster you can get those weeds out of there the better the situation in maximizing yields." Bayer also says Huskie has excellent tank mix compatibility with grass chemistry and has no rotational crop concerns. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.