Bayer CropScience has launched a new contact herbicide for controlling weeds in potato crops, called Basta.
The product claims to control all the main arable broad-leaved and grass weeds up to four true leaves, including difficult weeds like cleavers, fat-hen and polygonums.
Neil Thompson, from Bayer, said: “With capability to control seven grass weeds and 30 broad-leaved weeds, it’s now by far the broadest spectrum contact option for potato growers.”
Its strength against grass-weeds will be a major advantage over alternatives, he said. “Based on the active ingredient glufosinate-ammonium, it will control annual meadow-grass, which is often a problem in potato crops grown on lighter soils, and will help gain rotation-round control of grass weeds where resistance to cereal herbicides has developed,” he explained.
Paraquat has long been a core constituent of herbicide programmes but, according to Bayer, its recent loss means a completely new approach is required. “Basta has been designed for use pre-emergence of the crop,” Thompson said. “Controlling weeds at this earlier stage will rule out the checking of canopy development that was often a side-effect of delayed Paraquat treatment.”
Basta has been approved for use on all potato crops, varieties and soil types, and is rain-fast within four to six hours.
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