Nufarm, the leading phenoxy manufacturer in the UK, has announced a price increase for its diverse range of phenoxy herbicide actives and mixtures, citing the cost of re-registration. “This cost has soared in recent years’’ says Jon Staton, Nufarm’s Marketing Manager.
“These valuable products have a diverse range of crop uses depending on the active including grassland, cereals, peas, clover, sainfoin, orchards, forestry uses, Amenity grassland, and home and garden use. Each use has to be defended and the cost of this is escalating with the higher demands of the registration authorities. Even with the price increase they remain a very cost-effective group of products for the farmer. The good news is we are investing and phenoxies should be available to the farmer for many years to come.’’
Phenoxies are a collective group of herbicides which mimic the plant hormone auxin which help the plant grow towards the light. By overloading a weed with this hormone the plant will die. These herbicides are selective in cereals and grasses and later versions have selectivity in a range of leguminous crops. The early phenoxies were invented 70 years ago and include actives such as mecoprop-P, dichlorprop-P, 2,4-D, MCPA, MCPB, 2,4-DB and well-known brands such as Duplosan KV, Depitox, Easel, Compitox Plus and Agritox.
In recent years Nufarm have improved products such as Easel (MCPA) in cereals by extending the growth stage of use. Phenoxies are also an alternative to the ALS group of herbicides which have a growing number of resistance problems on certain weeds such as Mayweed, Chickweed and Poppy. They are vitally important for grassland weed control. They also have a complementary weed control spectrum to cereal products such as SUs and even after 70 years they are as relevant today as they were then.
