Farmers accustomed to considering Valent U.S.A. a company that serves soybean growers can now look to it to help them address their weed-control needs in corn, starting this season.
Valent announces it is entering the corn market with Maverick herbicide, which features three modes of action:
• clopyralid, a Group 4 plant-growth inhibitor
• mesotrione, a Group 27 HPPD inhibitor
• pyroxasulfone, a Group 15 very-long-chain fatty acid
The new herbicide has been in the works since 2017, according to Jon Kohrt, product development specialist for the company.
“Maverick is a broad-spectrum herbicide that controls tough broadleaf weeds like waterhemp and Palmer amaranth, along with annual grasses,” he says. “It offers application flexibility from preplant up to 18-inch corn, low use rates for easy in-field handling and mixing, and excellent compatibility with atrazine and 2,4-D. It also mixes well with fertilizer.”
Takes A Bite Out Of Weed Resistance
As Valent product development specialists evaluated weeds that plague corn production, how to best address them and bolster what is already in the marketplace, they chose to feature a Group 15 product in Maverick, specifically pyroxasulfone.
“It has been in the marketplace but not utilized particularly as a corn herbicide, like some of the other Group 15 products,” Kohrt says.
The Ohio State University Crop Observation and Recommendation Network reports that pyroxasulfone works well against annual grass weeds along with lambsquarters, waterhemp, pigweed, ragweed and black nightshade.
Valent is positioning Maverick as a premium product for corn growers. “A premium herbicide will typically offer growers multiple, effective modes of action,” says Erick Garcia, Maverick product manager.
“There’s a lot of work that goes into creating the right formulation of a herbicide for farmers and retailers to use,” Garcia adds. “As we developed Maverick, we wanted to offer a product that is easy to tank mix with adjuvants, fertilizers and other herbicides easily so growers and retailers wouldn’t have to worry about having a product that would clog spray systems or be cumbersome to them.”
Holistic Strategy To Herbicide Marketplace
Garcia says Valent is taking a holistic approach to the corn herbicide marketplace and plans to eventually offer a complete corn herbicide portfolio that would offer broad, season-long control options for broadleaves and grasses.
“Growers and retailers need new modes of action and new active ingredients to combat resistant weeds that continue to appear in our cropping systems,” he says. “We’re working on those in our pipeline currently, and we expect to launch some of those new chemistries, such as a PPO product, in the next few years.”
“Our motto at Valent is ‘products that work from people who care,’ so soybean growers who have become accustomed to our service and methods for supporting our products can expect that same degree of service and that we’ll have corn growers’ backs as we enter this market.”
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