Despite one or two night frosts, grassweeds are still actively growing and farmers will reap yield benefits from autumn post-emergence treatments, says Stuart Jackson, grassweed specialist with Dow AgroSciences.
While there have been some frosty mornings, average temperatures remain high enough for weeds such as ryegrasses, bromes and blackgrass to be actively growing and thus susceptible to herbicides.
"All our trials over the past three years show that left untreated these grassweeds will compete with early spring growth and depress yields," says Mr Jackson.
Broadway Sunrise, Dow AgroSciences’ weedkiller based on pyroxsulam and pendimethalin is ideal in the autumn against ryegrass, wild oats and bromes as well as non-resistant populations of black-grass.
The ’cross spectrum’ nature of Broadway Sunrise’s activity means that it will also help in winter wheat fields infested with volunteers of oilseed rape or field beans from previous crops.
"The open autumn has encouraged volunteers to emerge this year. Broadway Sunrise is effective against both grassweeds and a wide range of broadleaved weeds," says Mr Jackson. "Therefore it is ideal to clean up fields and protect yield loss to volunteers."
