Supplies of leading black-grass active flufenacet remain available this autumn, its manufacturer Bayer CropScience has confirmed.
Despite heavy demand again this autumn, due to an increased wheat area and an emphasis on herbicide stacking programmes containing flufenacet, Bayer CropScience has addressed concerns about shortages.
"Liberator (flufenacet and diflufenican) is available from most distributors throughout the country and stock is continuing to be shipped to meet the anticipated demand," says Tim Holt, product manager at Bayer CropScience.
"This year, we took soundings from several sources - including our own market intelligence - and could see the need for increased volume," he says. "A number of reasons had an impact, not least of which the product’s excellent performance last year.
"Whilst there have been concerns about the effect of the dry weather on pre-em herbicide applications, actually conditions have been favourable and there should be nothing stopping growers from getting these pre-ems on at the right time."
The vast majority of herbicide programmes designed to lower populations of challenging black-grass start with flufenacet. Trials by leading independent scientists and the experience of growers and agronomists have shown that of all the active ingredients, flufenacet is the least affected by the development of resistance. Consequently it is the foundation of many growers’ herbicide programmes and pre-em stacks.
"Feedback from users suggest that our flufenacet products performed exceptionally well last autumn and relieved the pressure on post-emergence black-grass herbicides," notes Mr Holt.
