Metamitron, Six Years in the Making: Palmer Amaranth Control in Sugarbeet.

Nevin Lawrence, Assoc Professor & Weed Management Specialist, Dept. Agronomy and Horticulture University of Nebraska- Lincoln Author

02/18/2025 Added

9 Plays

Description

As of 2023, there were no herbicides to control Palmer amaranth in Sugarbeet within Nebraska or Colorado. This presentation covers the past six years of research from the Panhandle Weed Science group that led to a emergency use label for a novel herbicide. Saving the industry $7 million in yield in 2024.

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[00:00:00.180]The following presentation is part of the Agronomy and Horticulture Seminar Series at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
[00:00:07.740]All right, well, hello everyone. On behalf of the seminar committee, it's my pleasure to welcome you to the kickoff of the spring 2025 Agronomy and Horticulture Seminar Series.
[00:00:20.880]My name is Dan Uden and I'm an assistant professor here in the department as well as in the School of Natural Resources.
[00:00:27.060]I have a great lineup of seminars planned this semester.
[00:00:34.080]I'll refer you to the handout that is on every one of the tables in the room, as well as the website for those online.
[00:00:42.020]You'll see we have a series of presenters from within the department here to start off the series.
[00:00:48.900]And then towards the end of the semesters, we get into March and April, some visitors as well.
[00:00:54.940]And today.
[00:00:56.560]Speaking of visitors, it's my pleasure to welcome Dr.
[00:01:00.960]Nevin Lawrence, who is joining us from Mountain Time Zone, but is certainly not a stranger to campus as he's an associate professor and weed management specialist at the Panhandle Research and Extension Center in Scotts Bluff.
[00:01:14.660]As I mentioned, he's a weed management specialist there and studies a variety of weed species in the
[00:01:24.820]cropping systems of the
[00:01:26.540]high plains, including the sugar beet system, which those of us who were in the INR all hands meeting this week, I think they had some footage of the sugar beet harvest there, which is great to observe and see.
[00:01:42.000]And so today, Nevin's going to be sharing with us about control efforts on one of our notorious weed species, not just of the western plains, but many other areas in the country, Palmer Amur.
[00:01:56.520]I will note before I turn it over to Nevin that we'll save questions for the end. Those of you online, please pose your questions on Zoom, and we can pose those verbally and answer them. And those of you in the room, we will pass around this mic to you. Make sure we wait for the mic so that those online can hear your questions.
[00:02:17.720]All right, again, with that, I will turn it over to Dr. Lawrence. The floor is yours. Thank you.
[00:02:24.660]Thank you.
[00:02:26.500]So outline today, I'm going to first cover what is a sugar beet. I'm going to go over the previous 100 years of sugar beet weed control history, talk about the arrival of Palmer amaranth, and then metamatron, unburdened by what has been.
[00:02:42.000]So first question for everyone here, what plant is this?
[00:02:46.440]Any guesses?
[00:02:56.480]Same family as Palmer amaranth.
[00:02:58.060]Jeff?
[00:03:00.140]Okay, we've got a pigweed here.
[00:03:02.920]This is Beta vulgaris.
[00:03:05.440]It's not a sugar beet.
[00:03:08.420]This is what's called the sea beet.
[00:03:10.560]So the sea beet is native from the British Isles, the Atlantic coast of mainland Europe, all the way down to the Mediterranean and parts of the Persian Gulf.
[00:03:22.280]And this was domesticated, they think, around 10,000 BC.
[00:03:26.460]The first record of it in written history was by the Greeks, where they had it as a leaf vegetable.
[00:03:35.780]So Betobulgaris is the same species as Swiss chard.
[00:03:41.700]It's a biannual.
[00:03:43.260]It's, again, same family as Palmer amaranth, lamb's quarter, kochia.
[00:03:48.340]So there's some relation there.
[00:03:50.180]But biannual species grows along the kind of intertidal zone where it's.
[00:03:56.440]Where it's native to.
[00:03:57.040]In 23 AD, there's written history as a root crop in Britain.
[00:04:02.520]In 1747, a scientist was able to figure out that the sugar from fodder beets was the same exact sugar, so sucrose, as what came from sugarcane.
[00:04:16.160]1806, a scientist developed a breed called white Sicilian, which was a high sugar type of fodder beet.
[00:04:26.420]And that is the ancestor to all sugar beets that currently are grown.
[00:04:30.980]And then in 1803 to 1815, we have the Napoleonic Wars.
[00:04:34.960]Why is that relevant?
[00:04:36.140]So we have a high sugar fodder beet, but there really wasn't a sugar beet industry anywhere.
[00:04:43.160]But the British blockaded France.
[00:04:46.160]One of the things that was blockaded in that was cane sugar from the Caribbean.
[00:04:51.140]And Napoleon started this campaign to have a...
[00:04:56.400]domestic sugar market, and that's where kind of sugar beet production first started.
[00:05:00.240]This has nothing to do with my talk, but I find interesting.
[00:05:03.440]1838, the end of slavery in the British colonies.
[00:05:07.140]Why is that on there?
[00:05:08.260]Well, we think about the African slave trade in the United States.
[00:05:12.240]It's usually focused on cotton, but there was also slavery in the Caribbean, in the British Caribbean.
[00:05:16.980]That was focused on sugar cane.
[00:05:18.980]Because of the Napoleonic Wars and this domestic sugar beet industry, it made it economical to have other options.
[00:05:26.380]This wasn't the reason slavery ended or the slave trade ended, but it was one of the key steps in that process.
[00:05:31.860]1870, first sugar beet plant in America and California.
[00:05:35.980]1890, the first sugar beet factory in Nebraska, which was in Grand Island.
[00:05:40.600]We've been growing sugar beets for about 135 years in Nebraska.
[00:05:45.240]What kind of environment do sugar beets do best in?
[00:05:49.720]I had to type this into an AI search to get an answer to it, but it turns out it's on the beach.
[00:05:56.360]Why do I say that?
[00:06:00.840]Well, because the ancestral plant is native to kind of this, not necessarily the intertidal zone, but right adjacent to it.
[00:06:08.880]So we're talking very high salinity environments.
[00:06:11.440]And so sugar beets have great salinity and drought tolerance.
[00:06:15.460]Those traits are often linked in crops.
[00:06:18.620]There's not a lot of competition with other plants, and they are extremely poor competitors.
[00:06:24.480]They are one of the most susceptible.
[00:06:26.340]crops we have to weed competition.
[00:06:28.160]Additionally, and I don't know if it has anything to do with the beech, but they are
[00:06:32.180]extremely sensitive to herbicides.
[00:06:33.980]If you look at almost any herbicide capable of carrying over to another crop in a rotation,
[00:06:40.120]sugar beets almost always have the highest carryover restriction.
[00:06:44.780]So years sometimes you have to wait before you plant sugar beets.
[00:06:49.060]So we have a plant very susceptible to weed competition, very sensitive to herbicides.
[00:06:56.320]This makes weed control just inherently difficult.
[00:06:58.800]So before 1940, this is a picture of a beet seed.
[00:07:04.720]All sugar beet seeds were multi-germ.
[00:07:07.620]And so what that means is rather than producing a single seed,
[00:07:10.420]they always produced them in sets of three.
[00:07:12.300]And when you would plant sugar beets, you'd have to wait for them to emerge.
[00:07:16.320]You'd come back in and then physically remove two of those plants from the field.
[00:07:20.920]And this happened all the way up to the 1940s.
[00:07:23.000]And then for weed control, it was hand weeding and cultivation.
[00:07:26.300]Very, very, very labor-intensive.
[00:07:28.240]Early 1940s, we had the first single-germ sugar beet seed.
[00:07:34.860]And then we still relied on hand weeding and cultivation for control.
[00:07:38.400]Early 1970s, we had the arrival of two types of herbicides, pyramin and rhoneat.
[00:07:45.160]Both these were pre-plant incorporated.
[00:07:47.480]So you would spray them, and then you would till up the ground.
[00:07:50.740]And both herbicides resulted in significant stand loss.
[00:07:56.280]This is a time period they called the thin to stand.
[00:07:58.760]So you would plant 30%, 40% over your target population.
[00:08:02.040]You'd apply, after the herbicides, the injury would occur.
[00:08:05.380]You'd go back in and then thin down the beets to what you want them to be.
[00:08:08.720]You would still need a lot of hand weeding and cultivation for weed control later on
[00:08:12.760]in the season.
[00:08:13.260]Very labor intensive.
[00:08:14.740]The mid-1970s, we had the arrival of ethafumicate, which is very similar to rhoneat, but a little
[00:08:21.280]bit better crop safety improvement.
[00:08:22.780]Still not having a lot of post-emergent options.
[00:08:26.260]Predecessor at the panhandle, Bob Wilson.
[00:08:28.040]This is kind of the period where he started his career in Scott's Bluff and sort of took
[00:08:32.560]over this research.
[00:08:33.440]So in the late 1970s, we have the arrival of two products, fenmedafen and desmedafen.
[00:08:39.620]These are both group 5 or photosystem 2 inhibitors.
[00:08:42.240]And these allowed weed control where you could plant to stand.
[00:08:47.180]So you would use ethafumicate pre, these products post, and you would apply them to the stand
[00:08:54.440]that you wanted for your target weed population.
[00:08:56.240]You wouldn't have as much crop injury.
[00:08:58.480]But you still relied on a little bit of hand weeding cultivation.
[00:09:03.060]This is taken from the Nebraska Weed Guide.
[00:09:06.340]This is the weed guide as of, I think this is from the 2006 edition.
[00:09:11.560]And if you compare this to any other crop, corn, soybeans, wheat, there's not a lot here.
[00:09:16.780]So what we have is the products on listed, the herbicides we have listed over there.
[00:09:22.480]Those tables on the right are just different weed species and how well they work.
[00:09:26.220]But the thing to really draw your attention to is this is a really small list.
[00:09:31.220]Eight registered herbicides, five modes of action, two pre-herbicides, but only four
[00:09:39.000]post-herbicides with broadleaf activity.
[00:09:42.220]And everything on this list is highly selective.
[00:09:45.140]What that means, we don't have one herbicide that controls every weed species.
[00:09:48.080]We have to use everything all at the same time to get broad-spectrum weed control.
[00:09:52.600]And then also we see here on kind of the bottom there.
[00:09:56.200]Something called the micro and half rate.
[00:09:57.900]What is that?
[00:09:59.540]So what is the micro and half rate?
[00:10:02.220]This was the weed control program that my predecessor, Bob Wilson, really worked on
[00:10:05.820]for the early part of his career.
[00:10:08.280]It's often referred to as chemotherapy for beets.
[00:10:11.480]So you do a tank mixture of desmetafen, fedmetafen, chlorpyrrolid, trisulfuron, and ethafumasate
[00:10:17.000]all applied together at less than a half, than a full rate.
[00:10:20.800]You apply this every seven to 14 days for several weeks.
[00:10:26.180]What you do is you injure the beets every time,
[00:10:29.720]but you injure the weeds a little bit more.
[00:10:31.620]And after several applications, you
[00:10:33.280]end up with a clean field and really small beets.
[00:10:36.740]But the problem with this program
[00:10:38.380]is if you miss an application because of equipment issues
[00:10:40.740]or weather or what have you, that next application,
[00:10:43.880]the weeds are bigger.
[00:10:44.820]You have to increase the rates further.
[00:10:46.480]Your crop injury goes up.
[00:10:48.080]It was a very difficult system to implement.
[00:10:51.200]And if things went wrong, you often
[00:10:52.940]still need a lot of hand weeding and cultivation.
[00:10:56.160]Here's a picture of two weed control programs.
[00:10:58.540]The one on the left is the micro rate or half rate program.
[00:11:02.800]And that's what the beets look like.
[00:11:05.160]Does anyone want to guess what the program on the right is?
[00:11:07.480]What herbicide program over there is?
[00:11:14.540]Any takers?
[00:11:17.740]Glyphosate.
[00:11:19.520]So 2006, I think it was, we had the arrival
[00:11:24.760]of transgenic beets.
[00:11:26.140]Now we could use glyphosate.
[00:11:27.280]And I remember I've often heard people
[00:11:29.400]that are critical of transgenic crops
[00:11:30.860]saying they never increased yield.
[00:11:32.380]They never increased yield.
[00:11:33.860]They certainly increased yield in sugar beets.
[00:11:38.100]With the adoption of the glyphosate-resistant beets,
[00:11:40.440]there was an increased $435 hectare return for farmers,
[00:11:45.960]not counting the tech fee for using that.
[00:11:49.440]But if you had the tech fee, you're still about $200
[00:11:52.460]a hectare increased profit over the previous system.
[00:11:56.120]Because of the crop injury problem.
[00:12:00.520]And with corn, soybeans, cotton,
[00:12:03.840]when glyphosate-resistant crops came out,
[00:12:06.020]we had this kind of slow adoption rate.
[00:12:08.000]Sugar beets, it was overnight.
[00:12:09.920]90% adoption the first year.
[00:12:11.780]It's currently about 99% adoption,
[00:12:14.000]which happened within the second year of release.
[00:12:16.780]So this is what, before glyphosate came out,
[00:12:21.780]this is what the weed control looked like in sugar beets.
[00:12:24.880]Within a few years though,
[00:12:26.100]people stopped using Betamix.
[00:12:28.360]They stopped using UpBeat.
[00:12:29.500]They stopped using Stinger.
[00:12:32.020]And a lot of these products, the labels expired.
[00:12:34.420]And so what products do we have now in sugar beets
[00:12:36.800]as of 2023?
[00:12:39.160]We have this.
[00:12:40.060]We've got for post-control, we've got glyphosate,
[00:12:44.080]and we've got Stinger.
[00:12:46.820]And that's it.
[00:12:48.340]So does anyone see an issue or what may occur
[00:12:52.980]when we only have, really Stinger's not
[00:12:56.080]a very good herbicide.
[00:12:56.920]It's very selective on certain weeds.
[00:12:58.720]We've only got glyphosate.
[00:12:59.800]Anyone see where this is going?
[00:13:02.280]The perfect storm.
[00:13:04.720]So I'm now gonna steal a slide from Ahmet
[00:13:09.320]from a survey I believe he did of most serious
[00:13:13.180]weed control weed species in Nebraska in 2015.
[00:13:17.520]Palmer amaranth's number six.
[00:13:19.920]Go to 2020, Palmer amaranth is now number one.
[00:13:22.760]So Palmer amaranth is native to the Southwest
[00:13:26.060]US, it kind of moved into the cotton production
[00:13:29.200]there, moved over to the cotton belt, widespread
[00:13:33.340]adoption of glyphosate, resistance shows up,
[00:13:35.960]and then it starts moving north.
[00:13:37.420]And this is an outdated map because you see
[00:13:39.700]it's absent in the Pacific Northwest,
[00:13:41.560]it is now found there.
[00:13:43.280]I think everywhere but the Northeast
[00:13:44.780]currently has Palmer amaranth.
[00:13:46.900]And Palmer amaranth is resistant to a lot of things.
[00:13:49.940]1989 we have our first case of resistance
[00:13:52.480]to triflunarin, 1993 group two and group five
[00:13:56.040]resistance.
[00:13:57.780]In 1996 we have glyphosate resistant soybeans and then
[00:14:01.920]corn and cotton.
[00:14:02.980]And 2005 we have the group nine or glyphosate resistance.
[00:14:07.180]Keep going in the future, 2011 group 14 and 27,
[00:14:10.900]2015 we have 2,4-D resistance.
[00:14:14.080]2016 they found a single population
[00:14:16.500]resistant to five different herbicide modes of action.
[00:14:19.420]And in 2020 glufosinate and dicamba resistance
[00:14:23.460]was discovered.
[00:14:24.420]So within the United States, there
[00:14:26.020]is every mode of action that's been identified so far.
[00:14:32.800]If you're familiar at all with herbicides,
[00:14:34.580]this is basically every herbicide mode of action
[00:14:37.220]we use in crop production.
[00:14:38.340]So there's a palmer population somewhere that's
[00:14:41.000]going to be resistant to it.
[00:14:42.740]The bolded is what we have in eastern Nebraska.
[00:14:46.120]Also in eastern Nebraska, we have several types
[00:14:49.240]of multiple resistance.
[00:14:51.020]But in western Nebraska, we are only
[00:14:53.580]dealing with the group 2 and group 9 resistance.
[00:14:56.000]So the ALS inhibitors and glyphosate.
[00:15:00.080]So this is sort of the background
[00:15:02.480]of what's going on leading up into this story.
[00:15:04.940]And when I started my position in 2016,
[00:15:07.640]I did a lot of research.
[00:15:09.040]I had grants submitted and funded in December.
[00:15:13.340]I started my position in January.
[00:15:15.500]So I came in ready to do work, and I
[00:15:17.540]was going to do work on kochia.
[00:15:19.220]All my kochia projects ended up being Palmer projects,
[00:15:21.980]because there was Palmer at the station.
[00:15:24.120]So 2018 was kind of my biggest--
[00:15:25.980]my biggest year for Palmer research in sugar beets.
[00:15:28.420]The first thing we did is try to figure out
[00:15:30.420]how bad is this actually for sugar beets.
[00:15:32.980]So in 2018, our Palmer population at the center
[00:15:37.140]was not resistant to glyphosate, which
[00:15:38.800]was kind of nice, because we could not use glyphosate,
[00:15:42.160]get Palmer in our sugar beets, spray glyphosate, remove it.
[00:15:44.580]It's since become resistant.
[00:15:46.200]But this is a study where you could
[00:15:48.480]see kind of some lighter colored green going through there.
[00:15:50.780]That's the sugar beets.
[00:15:51.740]The darker colored green is the Palmer amaranth.
[00:15:53.960]And we put a bunch of cups at known populations.
[00:15:55.960]Sprayed glyphosate, removed the cups,
[00:15:58.460]and then we had a set population of Palmer.
[00:16:00.460]And what we did is we looked at how many Palmer plants
[00:16:05.220]per meter of row we needed to reduce yield.
[00:16:09.080]And this has been done in pretty much every row crop now.
[00:16:12.540]And what we're seeing is about a 90% yield loss
[00:16:15.380]from one plant per half meter row,
[00:16:19.840]or two plants per meter row is what we were seeing.
[00:16:22.800]90% yield loss.
[00:16:24.840]Seed production.
[00:16:25.940]Seed production was pretty steady
[00:16:27.440]throughout all the population, so they kind of auto-regulate.
[00:16:30.460]But we're looking at about 150,000 to 200,000 seeds
[00:16:34.840]per square meter.
[00:16:36.320]We compare this to other crops.
[00:16:38.260]We see sugar beets are far more susceptible to crop loss
[00:16:44.140]from Palmer than any of the other crops
[00:16:48.520]that we normally will see Palmer in.
[00:16:50.120]So that was in 2018.
[00:16:52.760]Other project in 2018 was how well the existing
[00:16:55.920]options work.
[00:16:57.100]And so in the eastern sugar beet production region,
[00:16:59.700]which is Michigan, North Dakota, Minnesota,
[00:17:02.220]they don't have Palmer.
[00:17:03.360]They have waterhemp.
[00:17:04.380]And one of the existing products called ethafumasate
[00:17:07.380]works really, really well.
[00:17:09.040]And I didn't see it working.
[00:17:10.980]My colleague at North Dakota State
[00:17:12.720]was really surprised by this because usually what
[00:17:14.680]controls Palmer controls waterhemp.
[00:17:17.340]So we did a joint study where he applied a bunch of ethafumasate.
[00:17:21.060]I applied a bunch of ethafumasate.
[00:17:22.380]We saw what happened.
[00:17:23.320]So these are the treatment lists.
[00:17:25.900]Don't worry about it too much.
[00:17:27.960]Just focus on treatment 10.
[00:17:29.520]We applied ethafumasate at three pints an acre pre.
[00:17:33.020]We came in two more pints two different times.
[00:17:36.480]So it's a very high load of ethafumasate.
[00:17:38.660]The idea is ethafumasate controls Palmer before it emerges.
[00:17:42.180]And then you layer on the soil applied herbicides
[00:17:44.620]and it does come up.
[00:17:45.400]So seven pints an acre, super high rate.
[00:17:48.940]That was dynamite on waterhemp in the eastern production region.
[00:17:53.800]And this is what it did to the Palmer.
[00:17:55.880]Zero control.
[00:17:57.440]And so our existing pre-option just doesn't work.
[00:18:00.600]So we have no pre-options.
[00:18:03.980]But we do have access to what the group 15.
[00:18:06.260]So S-metolachlor, dimethylamine P, and acetochlor
[00:18:10.560]post-emergent.
[00:18:11.380]We can apply these lay-by or so after the crop emerges
[00:18:14.140]in sugar beets.
[00:18:15.500]How well does that work?
[00:18:16.700]And so also in 2018, this is our non-treated check.
[00:18:21.500]This is S-metolachlor or dual applied at two
[00:18:25.860]true leaves.
[00:18:27.240]This is S-metolachlor applied at the two and four true leaf
[00:18:30.660]stage, our two and six true leaves.
[00:18:32.940]And this is two, six, and 10 true leaves.
[00:18:34.960]So three passes of S-metolachlor.
[00:18:37.440]And it worked really well.
[00:18:39.420]But the key for this is the palmer came up.
[00:18:42.640]It first emerged after the two true leaf stage.
[00:18:45.900]So we've got an option, but only if we can get it
[00:18:49.960]on before the palmer emerges.
[00:18:51.420]In most years in the panhandle, the palmer
[00:18:53.620]is going to come up before the two true leaf stage.
[00:18:55.840]And so what we're left with now is really,
[00:18:58.440]if the palmer emerges early enough,
[00:19:00.100]we have zero control options in sugar beet.
[00:19:04.320]So there's one more study from 2018.
[00:19:06.980]This was a product called Metamatron Goldtix Gold.
[00:19:12.360]We applied it at--
[00:19:13.780]this is a 55 fluid ounce trial.
[00:19:17.160]And this is two to four true leaf sugar beets.
[00:19:20.360]So we are 26 days after the pre-application.
[00:19:23.780]It's super clean.
[00:19:24.880]You look in the background.
[00:19:25.820]You could see other plots that did not have that rate applied.
[00:19:28.400]And there's a ton of polymer in there.
[00:19:30.700]So we now have a product good enough
[00:19:34.880]to allow a lay-by application in group 15s post-emergence.
[00:19:38.940]They control the polymer.
[00:19:40.320]And I would say that this is equivalent to about a half
[00:19:43.700]pound of atrazine in our soils.
[00:19:45.300]Very, very good herbicide.
[00:19:48.220]And one of the things I often tell at extension meetings
[00:19:51.540]I'm talking to sugar beet growers is--
[00:19:53.200]and I don't mean to brag, but I often say that I'm
[00:19:55.800]one of the top six sugar beet weed scientists in the country.
[00:19:59.300]And the reason I say that is there's six of us.
[00:20:01.680]So this product was screened at all six locations.
[00:20:06.220]And it worked so well that when I went and told
[00:20:09.540]the company that makes it about the performance of this,
[00:20:13.920]they had absolutely zero interest in pursuing it.
[00:20:16.200]And they said, we're not going to work on it.
[00:20:18.360]It's not going to sell.
[00:20:20.220]You're not going to need support moving forward.
[00:20:23.040]So why is that?
[00:20:25.780]In North Dakota, Minnesota, and Michigan,
[00:20:29.320]they do not have Palmer.
[00:20:32.060]They have waterhemp.
[00:20:33.380]They have Ethetiuma State to control that.
[00:20:35.740]My colleagues in Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado, at 2018,
[00:20:40.400]they did not have Palmer amaranth.
[00:20:42.960]So worked great in Scott's Bluff.
[00:20:46.620]The other five weed scientists working on this
[00:20:49.160]just did not see a fit for it and told the company that.
[00:20:51.820]So they said they wouldn't do this.
[00:20:54.380]So then I went to Western Shore.
[00:20:55.760]Sugar and talked to them about this.
[00:20:57.520]And this is what Western Sugar--
[00:21:00.320]this is internal data from Western Sugar
[00:21:02.260]of what they're dealing with with Palmer
[00:21:03.920]at this point in time.
[00:21:04.800]So 2016, no Palmer.
[00:21:07.580]2017, no Palmer.
[00:21:09.520]2018, they're just starting to seed on a few acres.
[00:21:13.580]Not really a whole lot.
[00:21:15.800]And so at this point in time, I'm
[00:21:18.280]in my second year in my position.
[00:21:20.240]I really haven't established a great reputation with people.
[00:21:22.740]I'm still trying to work with stakeholders.
[00:21:24.440]And I come to them and not only do
[00:21:25.740]I say, we need to research this herbicide,
[00:21:29.580]I told them that it's for a weed that you're currently not
[00:21:33.300]having an issue with, but it is going
[00:21:34.740]to be your number one weed control problem moving forward.
[00:21:37.200]And for some reason, they listened to me.
[00:21:39.240]And so from 2018 onward, Western Sugar
[00:21:43.980]was able to provide the funding to kind of investigate
[00:21:46.240]this further.
[00:21:46.960]So what is Metamatron?
[00:21:50.000]This is a figure of all the herbicides known to man.
[00:21:54.000]It's a group two herbicide.
[00:21:55.720]So the same mode of action is atrazine.
[00:22:00.060]But it's similar chemically to metribuzin.
[00:22:04.680]So it's in the same chemical family as metribuzin,
[00:22:06.820]widely used in soybeans, potatoes.
[00:22:11.740]But the big thing is, it has never
[00:22:13.860]been used in the United States in any crop.
[00:22:16.480]It's registered overseas in Europe, New Zealand,
[00:22:21.480]parts of Africa for strawberries and different
[00:22:25.700]beet species, but it's never been used in the US.
[00:22:28.940]And one of the issues that we'll get into
[00:22:31.800]is I showed you what the 55 fluid ounce rate looked like.
[00:22:34.580]This is what the 110 ounce rate looked like.
[00:22:37.160]This was 50 days after the pre-application from 2018
[00:22:43.040]at 110 fluid ounces, absolutely spotless.
[00:22:47.300]This would be the equivalent of one pound of atrazine
[00:22:49.920]in our soils in western Nebraska.
[00:22:51.740]So very, very good control.
[00:22:55.680]So this is a registered rate in parts of Europe
[00:22:59.980]and other parts of the world.
[00:23:01.180]And this is going to be a problem,
[00:23:03.020]because this is the rate that we went with.
[00:23:04.720]And I'll kind of explain that.
[00:23:06.540]So 2019 through 2020, how do we incorporate 110 fluid ounces
[00:23:10.640]into our current production system?
[00:23:12.140]I was able to get funding from Western Sugar
[00:23:15.020]to put trials in Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, Oregon,
[00:23:18.180]Michigan, North Dakota, and Minnesota.
[00:23:21.420]The Sugar Beet Company in Idaho and Oregon,
[00:23:23.620]which is amalgamated sugar, also agreed
[00:23:25.660]to fund three years of trials.
[00:23:28.120]But after the first year, they changed their mind.
[00:23:30.640]They said, we're funding research in other states
[00:23:33.600]for a weed we don't have.
[00:23:36.760]And this isn't a good investment for us.
[00:23:40.060]And this is some foreshadowing.
[00:23:41.980]So moving forward after that first 2019 year,
[00:23:45.020]it's only Western Sugar support.
[00:23:46.700]So what does this look like?
[00:23:48.540]This is just one year of data.
[00:23:51.940]We've got Palmer amaranth and lamb's quarter,
[00:23:53.980]our two biggest weeds.
[00:23:55.640]What we see here, the 55 fluid ounce rate of metamatron,
[00:23:59.420]we really knocked back the Palmer.
[00:24:00.820]This is end of season weed control.
[00:24:02.700]So this is weed control before harvest.
[00:24:05.360]It's actually biomass data.
[00:24:07.680]So the full season of doing nothing else but 55 fluid
[00:24:10.480]ounces, we see that we've significantly
[00:24:12.580]reduced the amount of Palmer amaranth compared
[00:24:14.500]to the non-treated check.
[00:24:15.780]But we get up to that 110 fluid ounce rate.
[00:24:18.240]That was enough for season long weed control
[00:24:22.020]in this particular year.
[00:24:23.960]What did this look like at all the other
[00:24:25.620]locations?
[00:24:26.580]Well, Minnesota, Michigan, North Dakota,
[00:24:30.000]it performed really poorly because they
[00:24:31.620]had some dry years and there wasn't
[00:24:33.180]enough activation of the herbicide.
[00:24:34.600]In those areas, they don't use irrigation.
[00:24:37.240]In Wyoming and Idaho, where we applied this product,
[00:24:41.420]it worked great on lamb's quarter.
[00:24:43.140]It worked great on redroot pigweed.
[00:24:45.140]It worked great on nightshades.
[00:24:47.020]But they didn't have Palmer.
[00:24:48.740]And so it really wasn't adding anything
[00:24:51.120]to their weed control program.
[00:24:54.340]So 20--
[00:24:55.600]2020 through 2022, we continued some trials
[00:25:00.160]in Nebraska, Michigan, North Dakota, Minnesota.
[00:25:02.680]And this was kind of looking at, can we go with a lower rate?
[00:25:07.520]Because that 110 is quite a bit.
[00:25:09.940]Unfortunately, all these years of data, all these trial years,
[00:25:13.300]poor activation again in the eastern production region,
[00:25:16.000]and only one year in Nebraska did
[00:25:18.560]we have a high enough weed density to really get good data.
[00:25:20.980]But this is looking at weed control eight weeks after application.
[00:25:25.580]The green bars are a dryland system.
[00:25:31.680]So we're looking at how much irrigation
[00:25:33.800]we need to activate it.
[00:25:34.680]So we had this under no irrigation.
[00:25:36.700]The blue bars were under irrigation.
[00:25:38.620]Didn't tell us anything because there was no polymer
[00:25:40.700]where we didn't irrigate.
[00:25:42.360]But I'll get to what the dash line meant later.
[00:25:45.260]But the blue line is what the focus on.
[00:25:48.100]So this is a dose response.
[00:25:49.220]So we increased the dose of metamatron.
[00:25:51.780]We look at the density of plants eight weeks
[00:25:53.800]after application, and with the dose
[00:25:55.560]response, what you're looking for
[00:25:57.380]is what's called the lower asthmatope.
[00:26:00.080]That's the point where the curve starts to flatten.
[00:26:02.620]When the curve flattens, increasing the dose
[00:26:05.140]does not improve weed control.
[00:26:06.880]So eight weeks after application,
[00:26:08.740]we see that the curve flattens somewhere between about 50
[00:26:14.320]and 75 fluid ounces.
[00:26:16.620]And so that was the one good year data from 2020 through 2022.
[00:26:21.300]But it kind of told us that we might
[00:26:22.880]be able to lower the rate a little bit, get some good control
[00:26:25.540]up to midseason, and then maybe use group 15s later.
[00:26:29.380]And why is this important?
[00:26:30.580]Because in 2022 and 2023, things got really bad.
[00:26:37.280]This is, again, the Western Sugar data showing the yield.
[00:26:40.780]This is average yield over their 110,000 acres.
[00:26:43.640]They're only really dealing with Palmer, about 35,000 acres.
[00:26:47.000]So the Palmer interference was enough
[00:26:50.200]to drag down their entire regional yield
[00:26:53.080]from these small acreages.
[00:26:55.520]Some of the farmers that I've talked to
[00:26:58.120]have seen up to 60%, 65% yield loss on particular fields.
[00:27:02.040]I've had calls from growers during this time
[00:27:03.960]saying they can't find ground to rent beets on because
[00:27:06.640]the landlords are unwilling to let them plant beets
[00:27:09.060]because the Palmer is not controlled.
[00:27:11.800]And you can see what they're estimating for gross revenue
[00:27:14.140]loss on there too.
[00:27:15.420]This is really getting bad.
[00:27:17.820]So in 2022, Western Sugar decided to submit for a Section
[00:27:25.200]18.
[00:27:25.500]Which is an emergency use label.
[00:27:26.880]And that's a situation where you go to the EPA,
[00:27:29.340]you say, we've got an emergency.
[00:27:32.520]Nothing we currently have will work.
[00:27:34.860]Can you register this herbicide or pesticide
[00:27:37.860]that's labeled in a different crop for a new crop?
[00:27:41.140]And so they went to the EPA.
[00:27:44.580]And the EPA said, yeah, that's an emergency.
[00:27:47.160]We certainly will not register it.
[00:27:49.720]And the reason they said no is this
[00:27:53.080]Product has never been registered in the US. There is no US data on safety environmental impact
[00:27:59.220]anything
[00:28:01.120]They have the regulatory authority to allow data. That's equivalent from other countries to be used for section 18
[00:28:08.580]They've never done that and the EPA does not like doing things that are new because they're gonna get a lawsuit
[00:28:13.420]So the first try for section 18, they said no
[00:28:18.080]And that kind of started a snowball of political pressure. So there was pressure from within the Obama administration
[00:28:24.280]To pressure the EPA there was pressure from the Nebraska state government the Colorado state government
[00:28:30.540]multiple senators congressmen to really
[00:28:34.060]Re-evaluate this and the problem was in in 2018 to 2022. We were focused on that 110 fluid ounces
[00:28:41.100]It was too expensive for prop for its farmers
[00:28:43.660]but the EPA said no on the rate and the reason for that is
[00:28:47.140]while
[00:28:47.860]There are European labels that say 110 fluid ounces
[00:28:50.980]They wanted to base the label off the British label and I think the reason for it was because it was in English
[00:28:56.960]And the British label did not allow for 110 fluid ounces
[00:29:00.820]So despite the fact that the there was people willing to translate these labels for them
[00:29:05.560]They wouldn't do it. And so 2023 became an extremely important year where we had to say what's the rate that will work?
[00:29:13.420]So we did six studies to Nebraska for in, Nebraska
[00:29:17.640]And two in Colorado or sorry three in Nebraska three in Colorado
[00:29:21.660]To figure out what weight rate works
[00:29:24.680]So we sprayed the metametron or is what the common trade name is is gold ticks at
[00:29:29.900]different rates
[00:29:32.500]and then we looked at weed control eight weeks after application and
[00:29:36.660]The problem with the Nebraska sites is the weed density was really bad. And what I mean by that is is really low
[00:29:43.140]So we see up to four plants per square meter. That's not very good. We were able
[00:29:47.420]to get a dose response to work though for both locations. So Scotts Bluff and Mitchell I'll get to the dashed line in a bit
[00:29:53.180]And where that starts to flatten out is between about 50 and 75
[00:29:59.240]fluid ounces again
[00:30:02.140]Looking at the Colorado data
[00:30:03.740]We had much much better weed pressure up to 60 at one site and 120
[00:30:09.380]Plants per meter square at the other site and what we see here is again this curve starts to flatten out between
[00:30:17.200]about 50 and 75 fluid ounces and so
[00:30:20.360]What that's telling us is somewhere between 50 and 75 fluid ounces is probably going to be an okay rate to use so
[00:30:26.380]2023 they go back to the EPA with this data and they say can you grant a section 18 and they finally say yes
[00:30:33.340]So 2024 was the inaugural year for
[00:30:36.100]Metamatron it got labeled at 64 fluid ounces and the label says you must apply a group 15 after
[00:30:44.760]application so
[00:30:46.980]This is the program that I developed for weed control you apply metamatron pre
[00:30:53.020]and
[00:30:55.460]What this is this curve is showing that gray curve is over time the amount of herbicide in the soil is going to degrade
[00:31:01.880]And it's going to degrade to the point where it's no longer Friday weed control
[00:31:05.980]So before it degrades you make a second out you make an application of another soil residual herbicide in this case the group 15
[00:31:13.480]The reason we were making
[00:31:16.760]Application at two tree leaves it's the first time that we legally can make that application and then you're gonna follow it up with
[00:31:23.240]Depending on what the farmer thinks their their weed pressure is two to three are up to three applications of those group 15s
[00:31:30.700]And so what do we have for group 15s? This is also from an extension
[00:31:34.160]Document I developed that was sent to all the Western Terrier growers is we've got warrant outlook and dual
[00:31:40.380]We've got the cost per acre. We've got the rate per acre the number of applications you're allowed and how late in the season
[00:31:46.540]You can apply it and I basically tell them I don't have a strong opinion on which one to use go with preference and cost
[00:31:53.020]But if you're gonna make three applications, you need to mix and match and so you'd have to use at least two different products
[00:31:58.360]So how did 2024 go?
[00:32:00.940]Between mid-march and mid-may I had over 70 phone calls from agronomists and farmers. I was on the phone constantly
[00:32:08.500]Asking answering questions. We had a lot of questions on incorporation. Like how do we do that with tillage?
[00:32:14.340]I've never actually done that research
[00:32:16.320]We were too focused on the rate. So I was just making a guess to them
[00:32:19.020]And and trying to really solve this and then mid-may happens all the planning's been done and I hear
[00:32:26.600]Absolutely nothing for months
[00:32:29.040]And so it either went really really well or went really really bad and I was kind of sweating it and they were busy
[00:32:35.480]So I don't want to bother him
[00:32:36.920]But what it ended up is over the 110,000 acres
[00:32:40.040]They they saw a seven million dollars in sealed savings in 2024
[00:32:44.860]and
[00:32:46.100]This is from a product that was only applied to 38,000 acres
[00:32:49.240]And when we talk about sugar beets
[00:32:52.460]It probably has the most economic impact of any crop grown in Nebraska
[00:32:57.800]Per acre and what I mean by that is there's 400 people employed in western Nebraska working at the sugar factory
[00:33:04.880]to process the sugar and so there's a lot of
[00:33:07.880]Multiplication that goes on with each acre of beets harvested. And so when I say seven million dollars that's focused on yield
[00:33:15.880]conservatively, it was probably about 21 million dollars in economic impact in
[00:33:20.200]2024
[00:33:22.700]so
[00:33:24.180]What's the yield curve look like?
[00:33:26.180]Across 110,000 acres are now back to where it was before Palmer came there. The impact of Palmer went drastically down
[00:33:32.680]Some photos of what this looked like. This is from Bridgeport, Nebraska
[00:33:36.340]Where they had a skip with the sprayer. You can see the front of the half lot of weeds back half completely clean
[00:33:43.680]that
[00:33:45.660]Really high population of Palmer from the dose response study in Colorado 120 plants per square meter
[00:33:52.700]That was in Eaton, Colorado. This is what that site looked like in 2024
[00:33:56.360]So just exceptionally good
[00:33:59.780]so 2025 they're doing a
[00:34:03.320]Reapplication for Nebraska and Colorado. I said earlier that we did get some funding from Idaho
[00:34:08.500]But then they changed their mind because it wasn't a problem there
[00:34:11.480]Well, they now have a request for section 18 because Palmer showed up in
[00:34:15.440]2023 there
[00:34:16.980]and
[00:34:18.980]Eventually the company is hoping to go for a section 3 which is a full herbicide label for the use in sugar beets
[00:34:24.100]So what's the next steps for the the panhandle research?
[00:34:27.360]Weed science group I've been so busy on this the past six years. I haven't published any of this
[00:34:36.040]I haven't had the time so I hired a graduate student
[00:34:39.400]Abraham
[00:34:41.860]Okuoko and he is
[00:34:43.860]basically working
[00:34:45.220]at all the backlog of this research published we've got at least four that can probably go also some new stuff and
[00:34:51.820]The farmers really like this product. It's been great the one thing they don't like is the cost
[00:34:57.880]It's it's very expensive for 64 fluid ounces
[00:35:01.180]But going back to this diagram. I said I'll talk about this dashed line so the ethethumosate doesn't control
[00:35:10.240]Palmer amaranth we're pretty convinced of that
[00:35:13.720]but
[00:35:15.000]When we apply metamatron with ethethumosate the solid line is just metamatron alone
[00:35:20.540]the dashed line is ethethumosate we see this curve goes down a little bit earlier and
[00:35:26.240]What that means is there's some synergy going on with the herbicide so
[00:35:31.100]Applying two products together we get more activity in the metamatron alone
[00:35:35.540]And we're seeing that this curve starts to flatten out then rather than at 50 fluid ounces at about
[00:35:42.020]probably 30 fluid ounces
[00:35:44.780]Looking at the previous ones. I showed you same thing. It's flattening out a little bit earlier in both cases
[00:35:52.080]And then the high weed population locations also
[00:35:56.080]Flattening out a little bit near the locations and so that's going to be kind of the next big thing to do is try to figure
[00:36:02.920]out
[00:36:03.960]what
[00:36:05.960]What combination of these two herbicides is going to be optimal for the
[00:36:11.560]Synergy and potentially
[00:36:14.560]Lowering the rate use so I'm going to be buying what's called a log sprayer this
[00:36:17.680]Summer that it changes it as you spray like every 10 feet
[00:36:24.220]It's going to add in a half volume of water to the spray solution and dilute it and you just keep walking
[00:36:29.800]and so you're able to do these grid patterns of multiple intersecting herbicides and get a lot of rates in a small area and
[00:36:37.320]Try to figure out if we can figure out some some dose response
[00:36:40.940]Studies with
[00:36:44.340]This to kind of figure out the optimal combination of both products and with that i'm done and this took me over an hour when i practiced it and i'm i'm now about 20 minutes early so i apologize for that
[00:36:54.940]So any questions about this
[00:36:58.000]All right, thank you. Looks like we've got a few hands
[00:37:02.240]Coming up. Thank you for the great presentation. I'll go ahead and pass it off here
[00:37:07.420]Thanks nevin great talk. Thanks for the historic background as well. Appreciate that
[00:37:14.120]um, just thinking about
[00:37:15.900]You know the five-year ten-year window on the product
[00:37:19.800]so would you anticipate, you know kind of a dual benefit of the tank mix in this case of
[00:37:26.320]Obviously saving money and being able to reduce the rate of metamatron, but then also the potential to
[00:37:33.920]Increase the longevity of its usefulness
[00:37:37.140]In other words kind of delaying the rate of resistance
[00:37:40.380]no
[00:37:41.540]um, so the
[00:37:43.900]The way we think about resistance, uh one of the the best the best strategy to prevent resistance is uh to tank mix
[00:37:51.500]herbicides of different modes of action and and the thought behind this is
[00:37:56.100]If you're worried about glyphosate palmer amaranth and you're a corn farmer
[00:38:00.140]You can spray glyphosate and you can spray dicamba and if uh resistance shows up to glyphosate
[00:38:06.520]The dicamba controls the weed and so and if resistance shows up to dicamba the glyphosate controls the weed and so
[00:38:12.340]for there to be
[00:38:13.680]resistance in that field you have to have a
[00:38:15.860]a new
[00:38:19.040]Occurrence of a plant that has resistance to both at the same time and statistically that's just very unlikely and this is this is how
[00:38:26.000]You know drug resistance
[00:38:28.380]AIDS virus works, you know
[00:38:31.400]They do these drug cocktails with five or six different things because they can't mutate fast enough to be resistant to all of them
[00:38:36.440]with the
[00:38:39.260]metamatron at the fuma say the at the fuma say it's doing nothing and so
[00:38:43.460]I I don't think there would be any
[00:38:46.020]benefit for delaying resistance from having that the fuma say it in there and
[00:38:50.120]That is the kind of the downside with the metamatron is there's nothing preventing resistance from showing up from this
[00:38:55.340]There is resistance in the species common lambs quarter kinapodium album in
[00:39:01.560]Europe to metamatron already and so there's definitely potential for resistance to show up
[00:39:07.220]With within this area. So how far the longevity will be in our area?
[00:39:13.240]I'm not sure we should have some new we control products coming out in the pipeline
[00:39:17.640]Hopefully in the next five to seven years that should offer some post control options
[00:39:23.520]That would be a great benefit, but we'd still want to use this for the pre option
[00:39:28.360]So we have multiple herbicide modes of action within the same field
[00:39:31.460]That was a great talk and again, I really appreciated the historical background
[00:39:43.020]Very interesting. So I have a more general question about the beet family in general
[00:39:48.020]So, with red beets, my favorite vegetable, with that being presumably inter-crossable with sugar beet
[00:39:59.020]Is there a potential for gene flow of Roundup resistance to vegetable forms?
[00:40:08.020]So the question is, is there a potential for gene flow into
[00:40:12.800]From Roundup resistant sugar beets, transiting sugar beets to the vegetable varieties
[00:40:17.800]And the answer to that is yes
[00:40:19.800]And one of, so within where we're at, the sugar beets never go to seed
[00:40:28.800]They need the vernalization to go to seed
[00:40:35.800]And then when vernalization, but it's so cold here it just kills the beets
[00:40:38.800]They can't overwinter here
[00:40:40.580]All the beet seed production
[00:40:42.580]in the US, or at least the majority of it
[00:40:44.580]occurs within
[00:40:46.580]along the Oregon and Washington coast
[00:40:48.580]where they have mild winters
[00:40:50.580]where it's enough to vernalize
[00:40:52.580]but it's not enough to kill them
[00:40:54.580]And the way that works is
[00:40:56.580]they actually have a system
[00:40:58.580]with the farmers to isolate
[00:41:00.580]all the different seed production regions
[00:41:02.580]from each other so they're not
[00:41:04.580]having this
[00:41:06.580]gene flow issue
[00:41:08.580]So they're aware of the
[00:41:10.580]problem, they have protocols in place
[00:41:12.360]to prevent that from occurring
[00:41:14.140]I know that's where the bulk of the sugar beet production
[00:41:16.140]seed production is occurring
[00:41:18.140]I would imagine they have other beet crops
[00:41:20.140]there as well, but they are able
[00:41:22.140]to isolate
[00:41:24.140]those
[00:41:26.140]varieties to keep the gene flow
[00:41:28.140]from occurring, and this is important because
[00:41:30.140]I do believe most of the sugar beet varieties
[00:41:32.140]are hybrids, and so they're
[00:41:34.140]taking inbred lines and crossing them
[00:41:36.140]for the seed production
[00:41:38.140]in the breeding system, and so they have to
[00:41:40.140]have some isolation between those
[00:41:42.140]different varieties
[00:41:44.400]within that breeding system, so
[00:41:45.760]it's a problem they're aware of, and they do a good job
[00:41:48.300]managing it as far as I'm aware.
[00:41:49.480]And then, even more unrelated
[00:41:51.780]to your talk, with
[00:41:54.040]organic beets,
[00:41:55.380]which presumably have the same
[00:41:57.540]lack of competition with
[00:41:59.640]lack of ability to compete with wheat
[00:42:02.000]species, what tools do they
[00:42:03.960]have for controlling wheats?
[00:42:05.380]Within organic
[00:42:08.200]beet production, I'm not too familiar
[00:42:09.920]with the vegetable beet production. I know with
[00:42:11.920]commercial non-organic
[00:42:14.060]table beets, it's a lot of the same
[00:42:16.020]herbicides that we use in sugar beets.
[00:42:17.960]They'll use
[00:42:20.060]the ethafumicate, and
[00:42:22.020]they'll use some of the other products.
[00:42:24.240]With an organic beet production,
[00:42:26.140]I think it's going to be all mechanical
[00:42:27.860]hand weeding, so cultivation and hand
[00:42:30.080]weeding. That's really all they
[00:42:31.660]have.
[00:42:32.340]I have
[00:42:39.800]two questions. One
[00:42:41.700]is just on this picture, this
[00:42:43.480]slide right here.
[00:42:44.660]Your data from Mitchell,
[00:42:47.580]you had a maximum of three plants
[00:42:49.600]per square meter. Here
[00:42:51.680]you're plateauing, or your lower
[00:42:53.740]asymptote is at 20.
[00:42:55.540]I'm curious as to what
[00:42:57.540]those fields look like relative
[00:42:59.520]to the pictures that you did show that were very
[00:43:01.660]pretty. We did have
[00:43:03.540]pictures from there. The weeds were incredibly
[00:43:05.380]small. We also had biomass
[00:43:07.260]data, and the biomass data was almost
[00:43:09.280]non-existent. I think we started to see a
[00:43:11.480]new flush come up at those points.
[00:43:12.940]It was
[00:43:15.140]very clean. It was night and day. This is
[00:43:17.540]on your hands and knees, really
[00:43:19.380]looking for it kind of situation.
[00:43:20.900]Again, this is eight weeks
[00:43:23.600]after application.
[00:43:24.740]That was an arbitrary number I made up
[00:43:27.560]because it's two months.
[00:43:29.100]The sugar beets
[00:43:31.680]reached the two true leaf stage somewhere
[00:43:33.680]between about three and
[00:43:35.660]four weeks. This is giving us quite
[00:43:37.580]a bit of hedge on there for safety for
[00:43:39.340]overlapping these residuals.
[00:43:41.260]If there was a four-week
[00:43:43.420]rating,
[00:43:45.600]it probably would have been at zero
[00:43:47.280]from those dates.
[00:43:48.960]I didn't collect a lot of this data.
[00:43:51.480]We had cooperators that did.
[00:43:53.220]Having me go out
[00:43:55.700]six times to count weeds in one study
[00:43:57.500]in Scott's Bluff is doable,
[00:43:59.720]but doing that
[00:44:00.960]where someone has to drive two hours isn't.
[00:44:03.660]There was just one date had to be assessed
[00:44:05.680]and that's what it was.
[00:44:06.720]Next question is
[00:44:09.180]what post-
[00:44:11.040]products are coming?
[00:44:11.800]This is a good one.
[00:44:14.740]There is
[00:44:16.740]one of the larger sugar beet
[00:44:18.980]seed companies, KWS.
[00:44:20.720]They
[00:44:22.600]bought
[00:44:24.660]from Bayer
[00:44:26.640]basically the ExtendFlex
[00:44:28.760]soybean trait.
[00:44:30.880]It's going to be called
[00:44:32.440]Truvera.
[00:44:33.060]What I tell
[00:44:36.220]farmers is that
[00:44:38.520]every year it's two years away.
[00:44:40.820]What happened
[00:44:42.620]recently is there was this little situation
[00:44:44.960]and two things I don't
[00:44:46.820]work on because I don't want to
[00:44:48.760]is
[00:44:50.320]hemp
[00:44:52.000]and off-site movement
[00:44:54.680]at Dicamba.
[00:44:55.440]The off-site soybean thing that's
[00:44:58.780]been going on, that does not happen
[00:45:00.660]in western Nebraska because we don't have soybeans.
[00:45:02.880]There's also I think
[00:45:04.920]it's unlikely because of some
[00:45:06.760]humidity issues. That's kind of a personal
[00:45:08.640]opinion of mine because we
[00:45:10.600]spray a lot of older dicamba
[00:45:12.780]varieties all the time in western Nebraska
[00:45:14.840]and corn. I've never had a call
[00:45:16.720]for volatilization or off-target movement
[00:45:18.560]into sugar beets or dry beans ever.
[00:45:20.660]So I think the dryness
[00:45:22.800]there kind of helps protect from those things. But I don't
[00:45:24.640]like to work on that stuff. But my understanding
[00:45:26.840]is there was a big hoopla
[00:45:28.060]last year about dicamba
[00:45:30.660]registration in soybeans.
[00:45:31.640]And because of that, it's really
[00:45:34.580]slowed down this registration of this
[00:45:36.440]product in sugar beets.
[00:45:38.360]And so it would have the
[00:45:40.380]same resistances, so
[00:45:42.040]glufosinate and dicamba.
[00:45:43.340]Likely, my suspicion is
[00:45:46.400]if it ever is registered,
[00:45:47.960]it would have that trait,
[00:45:50.160]but it would only allow the post-application
[00:45:52.280]of glufosinate. And so that's what
[00:45:54.300]we'd be adding is that glufosinate.
[00:45:55.900]We might be adding
[00:45:57.240]the dicamba
[00:45:59.800]product pre-emergent.
[00:46:01.480]And then maybe
[00:46:03.880]in the future
[00:46:06.000]somehow dicamba post-emergent gets
[00:46:08.100]registered. I don't know.
[00:46:10.160]That's what's coming down the pipeline
[00:46:12.680]at some point.
[00:46:13.860]And
[00:46:15.140]both of those, what I tell
[00:46:18.540]growers about this is
[00:46:20.120]glufosate is a really, really, really
[00:46:22.660]good herbicide.
[00:46:23.340]When it was registered, it was
[00:46:26.720]game-changing.
[00:46:27.300]And if this other product gets
[00:46:30.520]registered, it's not going to be as good.
[00:46:32.100]But we would have access
[00:46:34.420]to definitely a tool that would allow
[00:46:35.960]post-control
[00:46:37.500]of a limited
[00:46:39.940]size weed
[00:46:41.220]in our sugar beets. And so that would
[00:46:43.620]definitely help quite a bit. But it wouldn't
[00:46:45.960]be as good as the Golden Days when the
[00:46:47.860]Roundup Ready first came out.
[00:46:49.000]Okay, I think we might have a few more questions
[00:46:53.860]in the room. Are we any online to rotate
[00:46:55.980]to? Not yet? Okay, you still got time to type
[00:46:57.960]them in. But we've got another one in
[00:46:59.940]the room here.
[00:47:00.380]Good presentation, Nevin.
[00:47:02.880]So, Nevin, in all your
[00:47:05.820]studies, you applied Goldtex by
[00:47:07.940]itself, or it was mixed with any
[00:47:09.720]other herbicides like
[00:47:11.820]S-metolachlor? We can't
[00:47:13.960]apply S-metolachlor
[00:47:15.520]pre-emergent in sugar beets.
[00:47:17.460]There's not the crop tolerance for that.
[00:47:19.960]So, we
[00:47:21.100]did apply it
[00:47:23.180]without the ethafumicate pre-emergent.
[00:47:26.060]Is there any opportunity
[00:47:30.040]you can apply Goldtex post-emergence
[00:47:31.900]in sugar beet? So, there is a
[00:47:34.000]that's a great question.
[00:47:35.120]Goldtex is labeled
[00:47:37.420]in Europe
[00:47:38.140]post
[00:47:39.500]emergent. There's a
[00:47:42.020]potential in
[00:47:44.020]the, it has no activity post
[00:47:46.160]emergent. We've tried. So, there's
[00:47:48.040]no activity post-emergent. The benefit of using it
[00:47:50.060]pre-emergent or post-emergence is you'd basically
[00:47:52.120]get, you'd extend your
[00:47:54.620]weed
[00:47:56.120]control time in the soil by having
[00:47:58.360]a pre followed by a post application.
[00:48:00.060]That's
[00:48:02.280]labeled in Europe, but
[00:48:04.120]under the section 18 it's
[00:48:06.100]not. Under the section 3
[00:48:08.040]it may be. And the reason
[00:48:09.280]it's not labeled under section 18
[00:48:11.560]is
[00:48:12.040]these
[00:48:14.760]labels are very
[00:48:17.580]hard to get. You have to have
[00:48:19.600]a demonstrated emergency. You
[00:48:21.560]have to make a case to the EPA.
[00:48:22.840]You have to have support from
[00:48:25.060]the stakeholders
[00:48:27.100]and the State Department of Ag.
[00:48:29.180]The more restrictive the
[00:48:31.400]herbicide label is for section 18
[00:48:33.700]the better chance it has going through.
[00:48:35.320]So if you actually read the label
[00:48:37.440]it's not
[00:48:39.060]labeled for
[00:48:40.320]Nebraska
[00:48:42.420]it's labeled
[00:48:45.280]for certain counties in Nebraska.
[00:48:47.100]It's labeled for only certain counties in
[00:48:49.220]Colorado. And then
[00:48:50.940]the only allowing a
[00:48:53.340]pre-application
[00:48:54.480]really also restricts that too.
[00:48:57.220]So there's a better chance that goes through.
[00:48:59.020]And actually the update for 2025 is
[00:49:01.200]one of the problems of the 2024 label
[00:49:02.800]is sugar beets often need to be
[00:49:04.800]replanted from early season
[00:49:06.640]frost or wind damage or
[00:49:08.840]what have you.
[00:49:09.720]And if you apply it, you only are allowed
[00:49:12.500]one pre-application. So if you
[00:49:14.060]applied it, you plant your beets,
[00:49:16.340]they get frozen out or wind damaged,
[00:49:18.460]you can't apply it again for your second
[00:49:20.660]planting. And now they're under the
[00:49:22.500]2025 label, they're going to allow
[00:49:24.720]for a second
[00:49:26.860]pre-application in the event of a
[00:49:28.680]crop failure. But the more
[00:49:30.540]restrictive the label, the better
[00:49:31.980]as far as the EPA is concerned.
[00:49:34.040]And how is the sugar beet response
[00:49:36.660]if you apply post-emergence?
[00:49:38.620]Uh, we, we
[00:49:40.260]applied it at incredibly high rates
[00:49:42.780]and it doesn't touch it. It is
[00:49:44.220]one of our, uh, if I go back
[00:49:46.700]to this study, um,
[00:49:48.400]so I have that 138
[00:49:52.960]fluid ounce rate, which is way, I'm just
[00:49:54.760]looking at crop safety. And
[00:49:56.500]I went out there one day
[00:49:58.180]and the, the beets were like two inches
[00:50:00.860]shorter. And I didn't have my camera
[00:50:02.780]on me. So the next day I went out to the field and it
[00:50:04.800]was gone. Um,
[00:50:06.340]it was, so the, the tolerance,
[00:50:08.400]is, is very good. And we've also only applied
[00:50:10.760]it post-emergence. There's no issues. It metabolizes
[00:50:13.040]it very quickly. And that's what the resistance,
[00:50:14.900]if it ever comes, the weeds become resistant
[00:50:16.780]to it, it's going to be through metabolism.
[00:50:18.120]So it's, uh, it's, it's metabolized
[00:50:20.780]by the sugar beets.
[00:50:21.540]And have you tried this product in other
[00:50:24.840]crops in a panhandle like
[00:50:26.660]dry beans? Um, we're,
[00:50:29.140]there's some injury to dry beans
[00:50:30.860]if it's applied in dry beans. We're going to be doing a study
[00:50:32.840]this year. Um, if your
[00:50:34.940]sugar beets get, uh,
[00:50:36.840]need to be replanted,
[00:50:38.180]um, after about
[00:50:40.200]mid to late
[00:50:42.400]May, it's not economical to plant
[00:50:44.580]your sugar beets because, uh, you're not
[00:50:46.600]going to have a long enough season to get yield.
[00:50:48.100]Um, and if that happens, it's also too
[00:50:50.560]late to get a corn crop in. So
[00:50:52.160]the next option is you go to dry beans.
[00:50:54.320]And so that's kind of like the backup if your sugar
[00:50:56.600]beet crop fails. So we're going to be doing
[00:50:58.660]some studies, uh, in,
[00:51:00.560]um, this year to, to look
[00:51:02.720]at dry bean safety,
[00:51:04.540]not for weed control, but for replants.
[00:51:06.460]Uh, but, uh,
[00:51:07.960]my colleague at Wyoming, Andrew
[00:51:10.680]Kniss, he applied a full rate
[00:51:12.660]and then planted dry beans immediately
[00:51:14.580]and it, it, it injured him. So,
[00:51:16.420]um, but there's, uh, 30 days
[00:51:18.680]beforehand, they're probably okay, but
[00:51:20.440]we're trying to figure out if what's the actual limit
[00:51:22.640]there. If it's 20, 25, we need to
[00:51:24.640]establish that, that crop safety margin.
[00:51:26.760]Do you see
[00:51:28.700]similar response of soybean, just like
[00:51:30.800]dry bean? We've not tried
[00:51:32.820]it in soybeans. Um, I,
[00:51:34.380]the, the, the smetamatron,
[00:51:37.060]um,
[00:51:37.780]it's, it's going to be labeled
[00:51:39.620]also in the U.S.
[00:51:41.520]for, um,
[00:51:43.880]the, the original reason
[00:51:45.960]they were, that we did, that even did the
[00:51:47.680]study, is they were selling it as an
[00:51:49.480]apple aborticide. So
[00:51:51.780]in apple production, you go
[00:51:53.700]through and you physically pinch off flowers
[00:51:55.600]on the tree, and that makes
[00:51:57.900]the remaining flowers to
[00:51:59.680]be, uh, larger, and you get
[00:52:01.680]bigger fruit. Um, and
[00:52:03.600]if you spray the smetamatron, it causes, like,
[00:52:05.660]at a very low rate, like, half
[00:52:07.600]the flowers just to abort, and so
[00:52:09.380]you can kind of chemically thin your
[00:52:10.960]apple orchard. So they're,
[00:52:13.320]that was the original purpose of the label,
[00:52:15.280]was to sell it in horticulture, and they're like,
[00:52:17.420]well, if we're going to register it in the U.S. anyways, we might
[00:52:19.480]as well see if it works for sugarbeets, and that's
[00:52:21.400]also part of the reason they didn't care to
[00:52:23.380]register it. But after we found the
[00:52:25.480]polymer control, um, they
[00:52:27.200]have been looking at other crops. I've
[00:52:29.560]heard rumors of some trials in cotton.
[00:52:31.460]Um, as far as
[00:52:33.500]soybeans go, you would think there'd be something there
[00:52:35.560]because of the metrobuse intolerance. I just,
[00:52:37.420]I haven't looked into it. One of the problems with it is it hyperaccumulates in, not hyperaccumulates,
[00:52:46.680]but it translocates the leaves. And so you get a really high concentration of the metamatron
[00:52:54.280]in the foliar parts of the plant. And so for seed crops, that potentially could be a problem for
[00:52:59.680]crop tolerance at the end of the season. But for beets, it's perfect because you're not having,
[00:53:06.500]none of it's in the roots when you harvest. At the same time, it's also registered in
[00:53:10.140]strawberries. So I don't know what the timeline is or what the interval is for this. And then for
[00:53:15.220]the apple aborticide purpose, the rates are incredibly low, really, really minor abuse rates
[00:53:21.100]for that. Because soybean has great safety with metabuzine. So you would think. There's a lot of
[00:53:29.500]things that I would love to look into this. It's just been, it's so, it's been so focused. I mean,
[00:53:35.820]I'm doing five or six trials a year with it, but it's, it's narrowly focused on the most
[00:53:39.440]important questions. And soybeans is something I haven't looked into, but I would imagine the
[00:53:44.340]company registering it has thought about this. So maybe it's something to look into in the future.
[00:53:49.820]So maybe this year, can we do a study like in Lincoln, Clay Center, North Plate,
[00:53:56.000]just try to see response of soybean too? Yeah. I'll need to get more product
[00:54:00.260]requested from the company. It's, it's Atoma, which used to be their own company in,
[00:54:05.640]in Israel. They're still in Israel, but they've been purchased by, they're now a subsidiary of
[00:54:10.360]St. Jenna, I believe. Okay. Kind of, kind of, kind of a subsidiary.
[00:54:14.540]So thank you. Yeah. Any online question? No, one more.
[00:54:19.120]Got one more.
[00:54:19.920]Your comment that you just made about it accumulating in the leaves.
[00:54:26.020]Yes. Is that going to start causing a problem for producers? I want to use the residual in
[00:54:32.860]livestock feed situations. You are.
[00:54:35.460]So two things. When they chop the leaves in sugar beet fields, it destroys the top of
[00:54:43.740]them. And the leaves then, you could go through and graze like a sugar beet field after harvest,
[00:54:49.720]and there would be leaf residue there. But they'd also be choking on the beets that are
[00:54:54.460]left in the field too. Because a lot of times you'll have some roots that fall in the ground.
[00:54:58.700]So grazing after sugar beet harvest isn't a big deal. And the leaves are destroyed anyways.
[00:55:05.280]But because it accumulates in the foliar part of it, what we do sell is the molasses goes to
[00:55:12.260]cattle feed, the pulp goes to cattle feed, and all of those things are, I think, still fine.
[00:55:17.880]They're specifically on the label says do not feed leaves to livestock,
[00:55:21.420]but that's just not a practice anyways. Excellent. Well, thank you for the great
[00:55:30.340]presentation. Thank you as well for joining us from the other side of the state to be here in
[00:55:35.100]Houston. Join me thanking Nevin again.
[00:55:38.280]Thank you.
[00:55:44.740]Thank you.

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Metamitron, Six Years in the Making: Palmer Amaranth Control in Sugarbeet.

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