New pulse crop desiccant
There’s a third product choice for desiccating peas, lentils and chickpeas. Up until now, the only registered choices have been glyphosate and Reglone. Glyphosate provides control of perennial weeds in the crop, but it’s very slow for crop dry down. Reglone provides fast dry down, but in heavy crops it doesn’t always penetrate to the bottom of the canopy. Reglone is also quite expensive. The new choice is CleanStart from Nufarm. It has just received registration. CleanStart has been used as a burnoff at seeding time and in chem fallow. It contains glyphosate as well as a Group 14 herbicide called carfentrazone. The glyphosate will provide perennial weed control and it’s a systemic product that will keep working to dry the crop. The carfentrazone will provide a faster dry down than glyphosate alone. It’s important that producers use only registered products for desiccation. When a product is applied close to harvest time, it will typically leave a tiny, but measureable residue in the seed. On registered products, MRLs, Maximum Residue Levels have been established. On unregistered products, any detection of a residue could result in all sorts of problems in the marketplace. If you’re desiccating pulse crops, go with Reglone, glyphosate or CleanStart. I’m Kevin Hursh.