Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative (AHRI)
The herbicide mixture is greater than the sum of herbicides in the mix
Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative (AHRI)
AHRI researcher, Dr Roberto Busi is no philosopher, but he has recently published some significant research that shows that Aristotle knew a thing or two about herbicide resistance despite being born over 2000 years before the first herbicide. Amazing! The message from this research – never assume that a herbicide mixture will fail even if there is resistance to both components of the mix.
Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative (AHRI)
What sort of person goes to a cocktail party and sticks strictly to beer? A smart one! We all know that mixing drinks can hurt the next day. We can’t say the same for herbicide mixing though. The smart farmers and agronomists are mixing two or more herbicides targeting the same resistant weed to delay resistance and maximise weed control, and the science is supporting this approach. AHRI researcher Roberto Busi is a long-term advocate of herbicide mixing and in his recent paper which describes some computer modelling that he undertook with the help of Michael Renton.
Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative (AHRI)
They said ‘yeah, it happened in the lab but that will never happen in real life’. The evil Busi said ‘I’m not a bad person, I’m not trying to create a monster, I just found something really bad and felt that I should tell you about it’. The naysayers said, ‘sure, just tell us when it happens in real life, then we’ll believe you’. Guess what, it happened! Dun dun duuuun!!!! Canadian researchers Mangin, Hall and Beckie have found wild oats that are resistant to Avadex®, and have never been sprayed with Sakura®, were found to be Sakura® resistant. This…
Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative (AHRI)
Many of our Australian readers would remember the great TV mini-series ‘Underbelly’ that exposed the underworld of Melbourne and Sydney. It got the whole country talking about Carl Williams and the Moran brothers, and the corruption in the police force. Similarly, our mini-series on pre-emergent herbicides will seek to reveal the underbelly of the herbicide world. We started this series a couple of years ago and plan to pick it up where we left off. ‘Pre-emergent: A tale of four herbicides’ has the whole of the Australian agricultural industry talking about cross-resistance, P450’s, GST’s, and the sting in the tail…
