Early-season corn grows in weed-free rows.

Every growing season is unique and challenging, but with the right strategies, you can maximize yield potential and create field conditions that will benefit your corn and soybean crops for years to come. As a first step, we recommend scouting your fields and reviewing notes from the close of the 2020 season.

Dr. Bill Johnson, professor of weed science at Purdue University, says growers should look at the subtle changes happening in their fields:

Is foxtail control getting more difficult?

Is waterhemp making inroads in your area?

Knowing what’s happening in your fields will give you a head start when preparing for each new season and should guide your management decisions. Across the board, researchers have stressed the importance of early-season weed management. Dr. Erin Burns, assistant professor and extension weed scientist at Michigan State University, says there’s a critical period of weed management in corn, which is before or shortly after corn emergence. Managing those weeds by starting clean and staying clean is key to preserving end-of-season yield potential and will help you navigate future seasons more easily by reducing deposits of weed seeds into the weed seed bank.

While the foundation of every weed management program starts with herbicides, you should also consider cultural strategies like high seeding rates, narrow row spacing, the use of cover crops and harvest weed seed control methods (chaff lining/seed destructors) in combination with your herbicide programs, says Dr. Prashant Jha, associate professor and extension weed specialist at Iowa State University. Integrating some of these practices alongside your herbicide program is best from an operational standpoint and helps manage the development of herbicide resistance.

To start and stay weed free in soybeans, check out our soybean herbicide program planning tool to learn which soybean herbicides are the best fit for the trait(s) used in your unique operation to develop a season-long plan of overlapping residuals.

Columbia, MO: 2018

Tavium® Plus VaporGrip® Technology herbicide provides application flexibility from preemergence to post-emergence, to help meet each season’s unique challenges.

Left: XtendiMax® with VaporGrip Technology 22 oz/A. Right: Tavium Plus VaporGrip Technology 3.53 pt/A. Treatments applied preemergence.

Proven preemergence performers such as Boundary® 6.5 EC, BroadAxe® XC or Prefix® herbicides contain multiple effective sites of action and provide weed management across a range of geographies, soil types and across all trait systems. Sequence® herbicide also fits under any trait platform and can be applied post-emergence following a preemergence application of Boundary 6.5 EC, BroadAxe XC or Prefix herbicides in auxin-tolerant soybeans for season-long residual control.

In dicamba-tolerant soybeans, a preemergence application of Boundary 6.5 EC, BroadAxe XC or Prefix herbicides can be followed by Tavium Plus VaporGrip Technology herbicide, the market’s first residual dicamba herbicide premix. Tavium is a formulation of dicamba and S-metolachlor, making it convenient for managing key ALS-, PPO- and glyphosate-resistant broadleaf and grass weeds.

If your operation produces corn, Acuron® herbicide offers a unique combination of powerful weed control, longest-lasting residual and proven crop safety that helps maximize yield potential. When used in a preemergence application at full label rates, Acuron outyields competitors by 5-15 bushels an acre.* See what those extra bushels could mean for your revenue potential in 2021.

Sign up for the Know More, Grow More Digest to receive twice-monthly agronomic e-mail updates pertinent to your area.

All photos are either the property of Syngenta or are used with permission.

Syngenta hereby disclaims any liability for Third Party websites referenced herein.

Performance assessments are based upon results or analysis of public information, field observations and/or internal Syngenta evaluations. Trials reflect treatment rates and mixing partners commonly recommended in the marketplace.

The trademarks or service marks displayed or otherwise used herein are the property of a Syngenta Group Company. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

*When applied preemergence and at full label rates. Acuron yield advantage range based on 2016 Syngenta and University trials comparing Acuron to Corvus®, Resicore®, SureStart® II and Verdict®. For more information on Acuron versus an individual product, ask your Syngenta representative.