Frozen vegetable specialists Birds Eye has been successfully managing the potential threat of potato apples in vining peas through a carefully balanced control programme using drilling dates and the pre-emergence herbicide Nirvana.
Andrew Whiting, agronomy manager for Birds Eye, has expressed concern over the contamination of peas with potato berries which can result in rejection of the crop.
“Produced by potato tubers left in the soil from a previous crop, potato berries are of similar size and colour to peas. We identify fields with a potential problem and then implement an integrated management strategy to make sure that our produce is free from this threat. It has become more difficult with the demise of Fortol and Trifolex-Tra which was revoked last year, but we are pleased that we have the option of using Nirvana instead,” said Whiting.
Whiting said, as part of their wide-ranging trial and development programme to support their ever growing group of vining pea growers, trials have been laid down in the last two years to test herbicide efficacy.
“The previous year trials showed that the use of Nirvana reduced the number of potato berries from 110 in the untreated to just 15, a control level of 86%. Last year we used Nirvana in many more commercial situations and there was no increase in the level of potato apples going into the factory or spotted during scanning in the factory. Nirvana was targeted for use on vulnerable sites where the problem was identified as being a potential risk and so the fact that we had no rejections was an indication that the strategy was working.”
“Potato apples are normally formed on potato volunteers after the end of June. Vulnerable crops are therefore those which are likely to be harvested after this time. So vining peas drilled from the beginning of April onwards would be at risk and we would recommend the use of Nirvana. On earlier drilled sites, say those drilled from March to mid April, the crop would be harvested before the potato apples could be formed and in these circumstances we would use drilling date as the best approach,” he said.
Jonathan Ball, marketing specialist for chemical company BASF, said: “Containing imazamox and pendimethalin, Nirvana controls the most of the important weeds in peas including Black-bindweed, Charlock, Common Poppy, Fat-hen, Knotgrass, Orache and Redshank as well as Common Chickweed, Fumitory, Henbit Dead-nettle, Speedwells, Red Dead-nettle and Scarlet Pimpernel. Imazamox enhances the control of several key weeds, such as Charlock, Black-bindweed, Cleavers and Volunteer Oilseed rape, compared with equivalent rates of straight pendimethalin. With vining peas being uncompetitive early on, it is important that these weeds are removed as effectively as possible.”
“We have lost so many effective pulse herbicides in the last few years. Nirvana is proving to be a very useful product with the potential to fill gaps arising from revocation and loss of active ingredients. In particular it can replace Fortrol and Trifolex-Tra (MCPB + MCPA) which was a useful option for preventing potato berry production,” he said.
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