12/27/07 Huskie the herbicide

Farm and Ranch December 27, 2007 It may be called Huskie, but if Bayer Crop Science's new broadleaf cereal herbicide works, even farmers in WSU Cougar country in the Pacific Northwest say they'ell use it. Growers can get on the offensive against some troublesome weeds and weed resistance management with Huskie. Al Sartini of Bayer's Pacific Northwest District says the herbicide offers the first significant new mode of action for control of broadleaf weeds in all wheat and barley in 20 years. Sartini: "It is going to fit our markets real well where we have issues with resistance to sulfonylurea type herbicides. Weeds like prickly lettuce, Russian thistle, kochia, are extremely well controlled with this product." Sartini says Huskie was given to 31 growers throughout the Pacific Northwest this past year, who ran it through their equipment and weed control programs. Sartini: "We had 19 locations for example that had a very high rate of kochia. The guys rated as 91-100% control. Russian thistle; we had two or three locations with high populations of Russian thistle. They rated 90-100%. The same thing with china lettuce." Huskie has no plant back restrictions for cropping flexibility. And Bayer says the herbicide is a near-perfect tank-mix partner with excellent compatibility with grass-control products and for mixing with fungicides and insecticides. Sartini says there is only a limited supply of Huskie available for this coming year so he recommends getting into to your retailer and buying now or getting on a reservation list. By the way, Sartini was wearing a Cougar crimson red sweater during that Huskie interview. I'm Bob Hoff and that's the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report on the Northwest Ag Information Network.