Combination of 2,4-D and glyphosate | The new product is approved in Canada but not yet in the United States
CARMAN, Man. — Jeff Loessin made an observation that was impossible to miss while squatting down to examine soybean plants in a plot trial.
One row of beans was perfectly clean and the next row was inundated with volunteer canola.
Loessin, a portfolio marketing leader for crop protection with Dow Agrosciences, said the weed-filled row was treated with glyphosate. The other row received a new version of 2,4-D and glyphosate and possessed genetics from Dow’s new Enlist technology: herbicide tolerance for glyphosate and 2,4-D.
Many soybean fields in Manitoba are rife with volunteer canola, but Loessin said Enlist also combats other problem weeds.
“From a weed spectrum standpoint in Western Canada, we’ve got a number of weeds, particularly (wild) buckwheat and volunteer canola, that tend to cause straight glyphosate a fair bit of issue,” he said during a recent tour of Dow’s trial site east of Carman.
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Dow plans to commercially launch its highly touted, highly controversial Enlist weed control system next year in Ontario and Quebec.
“From an Eastern Canada standpoint, corn will be sometime in 2015 and soybeans will be sometime in ’16,” Loessin said.
“I would anticipate, just because of hybrid or variety availability, that Western Canada would be a year behind.”
Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency registered Enlist technology last year, but official approval in the United States is still pending.
“The U.S. hasn’t fully approved it. They’ve issued their draft (registration) … (but) they’re not quite there yet,” Loessin said.
Dow was hoping to launch Enlist last year, but the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the Environmental Protection Agency took extra care to review the herbicide tolerant technology, which uses a new version of 2,4-D known as Colex-D.
American environmental groups lobbied vigorously against Enlist, claiming 2,4-D causes Hodgkin’s disease, birth defects and other health complications.
Weed scientists also spoke out against the technology, noting it would be a short-term fix and eventually hasten the spread of herbicide tolerant weeds in North America.
“I’m not opposed to stacked traits … (but) we tend to find something that works really well and overuse it to the exclusion of other things that we should be trying,” said Neil Harker, weed ecology and crop management expert with Agriculture Canada in Lacombe, Alta.
“It’s a nice system to use in the short term, but if it’s overused, you run into trouble.”
Loessin said Dow has developed a stewardship plan to prevent farmers from relying on one weed control technology.
“In Eastern Canada, the message is very clear. We want to see a soil applied herbicide applied ahead of the corn and soybeans,” he said.
“That’s an absolute must in Eastern Canada because those guys are in a corn, soybeans, corn.”
Loessin said overuse of the technology and the likelihood of weed resistance to 2,4-D and glyphosate are less of a concern in Western Canada.
“In Western Canada, the same message is coming across (soil applied herbicide),” he said.
“But the other thing at play in Western Canada is we have a better crop rotation. That crop rotation brings a herbicide rotation.”
Loessin said Enlist is solely for corn and soybeans and not canola.
“From a business standpoint, we don’t see an expressed need in canola the way we do in corn and soybeans,” he said.
“There are other herbicide options in canola that people can use to help enhance their control. There are other systems beyond just the glyphosate system.”
Seventeen Ontario farmers are growing Enlist corn this year as part of a field trial of the product. The corn will remain on-farm and be fed to pigs or dairy cows.
The U.S. is expected to fully approve Enlist later this year, but Dow still needs to satisfy regulations in a couple of key export markets for North American corn and soybeans.
Loessin said import approvals are progressing in South Korea and the European Union, but China is a wild card.
“In China we’re working through the process there,” Loessin said. “Obviously, with Chinese trade approvals it’s complicated, to say the least.”
