WINNIPEG – Most farmers would be surprised if a herbicide sales representative suggested a competing company’s product to combat weeds.
But that’s exactly what two companies plan to do. Cyanamid and Ciba want farmers to realize that herbicide-resistant weeds are a serious problem in Western Can-ada and they’re prepared to give up a sale if it will help stop the growth.
Last week, the companies announced an unheard-of agreement in the highly competitive industry. Rick Istead, a Ciba manager in Calgary, said employees will recommend farmers choose a Cyanamid herbicide “when it makes the most sense for the long-term sustainability of the products and the farmers’ operation.”
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Mark Goodwin, a Cyanamid manager in Winnipeg, confirmed that his company’s staff will do the same.
Herbicide-resistant weeds develop over time when herbicides from the same group are applied continually to the same field. They are tough, if not impossible, to kill.
Poll taken
Cyanamid hired a research firm to poll farmers this summer about their attitudes toward resistance and what they’re doing on their farms to prevent it.
Goodwin said of the 403 randomly selected farmers, almost half were aware of the issue. But only 15 percent said they’re taking steps to prevent it.
Istead said he hopes the co-operative marketing agreement shocks farmers into action.
“I hope what it does is wakes them up to the fact that they can no longer say, ‘Well, I don’t have resistance, or it can’t happen to me.'”
Weed specialists were pleased with the agreement. “It’s really an unprecedented approach,” said Dave Kelner of Manitoba Agriculture.
“I think it brings in more credibility with the growers … in that all facets of the weed community are talking roughly the same message,” said Len Juras of Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food.
In Manitoba, researchers have determined that half of all cultivated acres are at a high risk of developing weeds resistant to group 1 herbicides.
The problem is not as well tracked in Sask-atchewan and Alberta, but Patrick Doyle of Ciba said that certain parts of the provinces have problems with kochia that’s resistant to group 2 herbicides.
Farmers left helpless
Istead said his company realizes that if something isn’t done about weed resistance, not only will it affect sales of Ciba products, but it will limit the tools farmers have to control resistance.
“… It’s well documented in terms of where it’s heading, and it’s not a direction we like,” he said.
