It’s as basic as knowing your ABCs: Use an adjuvant with herbicide applications. Adjuvants help herbicides perform better and also contribute to the “application characteristics” of the products. Rod Gustafson, Federated agronomist at the Albertville location, noted that adjuvants help:

• · overcome antagonism with herbicides;
• · improve weed coverage by helping penetrate the weed surface, or the hairs on the leaf, or the angle of the  leaf; and
• · transport the herbicide into the plant.

 “Use adjuvants when the herbicide label calls for them,” said Rod Gustafson, Federated agronomist at the Albertville location, “and use the right one based on what the label says.”

For many of today’s herbicides, adjuvant choices are highly specific to the product. The dicamba herbicides in particular (Engenia®, Fexapan®, Xtendimax®) require a certain kind of adjuvant, and they should not be mixed with AMS. These requirements are often related to drift management too.

Label directions will clearly specify what should be used: a crop oil concentrate and/or a non-ionic surfactant (NIS), or a methylated seed oil (MSO).

Although adjuvants are not regulated in the way pesticides are, they are an important part of effective herbicide applications. Herbicide performance is often linked to the adjuvant – which is why, Gustafson said, “You can’t go ‘off ranch’ and do whatever. Follow the label and do what it says.”

Talk to your Federated Agronomist to determine which NIS, crop oil concentrate, or MSO is best (or required) for your herbicide choices. And “always read and follow label directions.”