Syngenta is taking a lead role in spreading the gospel that farmers must take steps to thwart the growing tide of glyphosate-resistant weeds.
The chemical company has set up a website at www.resistancefighter.com, hired a weed resistance manager and launched a promotional campaign to inform farmers how serious an
issue it has become.
Syngenta’s 2-1-2 program instructs farmers to use no more than two applications of glyphosate on the same land over a two-year period. The message for growers is to not overuse the herbicide.
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“I’m proud of what Syngenta is doing here to help growers along in making the right decisions,” said Chuck Foresman, the company’s weed resistance brand manager.
But one weed expert claimed Syngenta’s stewardship initiatives might not be as altruistic as they seem.
Part of the chemical company’s message to growers is to rotate conventional crops with Roundup Ready crops and to use a variety of burndown, pre-emergent and postemergent herbicides in their weed control programs.
Alternating chemicals according to their modes of action is sound advice, but it does play into Syngenta’s strength as a provider of numerous alternative herbicides, said Mark Loux, extension weed scientist at Ohio State University and a leading expert on the resistance issue.
“In the end almost everything companies do is self-serving. So I think in this case it came out of a need to protect their pre-emergence corn herbicide share.”
Foresman admitted as much.
“Sustaining and maintaining the usefulness of glyphosate also maintains and sustains the usefulness of other Syngenta products. That’s very important to us,” he said.
Motivation aside, Syngenta deserves credit for spreading the resistance message because the overuse of glyphosate is threatening one of the most economical weed control systems farmers have ever had, said Loux.
“We have met the enemy and he is us. We are doing ourselves in here,” he said.
Loux has a problem with Syngenta’s 2-1-2 campaign because it is an oversimplified solution to a complex problem. He pointed out that growers in Ohio developed glyphosate-resistant horseweed populations while using that regime. But he agreed that rotating crops and chemicals with varying modes of action is the correct approach.
Among the weeds scientists have confirmed to be resistant to glyphosate are horseweed, common ragweed and Palmer pigweed. Others, including lambsquarters, are suspected candidates.
Foresman is particularly concerned about the latest addition to the confirmed list. Palmer pigweed is part of the Amaranthus species of weed, which is found all over the United States. The species may be cross-resistant to other Group G9 herbicides as well.
“It should be a wake-up call for all of us,” he said.
Even if scientists discover a new herbicide with a different mode of action, it will be at least 10 years before it is commercially available to growers. That means today’s tools will have to be sustained through this generation of growers.
“Glyphosate and glyphosate tolerant crops are superior to any other system of weed control and are too good to lose,” said Foresman.
