Fungicides need to be applied on target in order to be effective, which is why you should keep water volumes and travel speeds top-of-mind.

Use the highest registered water volume while lowering your travel speed so you can be sure to get the most even consistent coverage over the entire crop.

Crop staging is another important consideration. On lentils, for example, you should get into the field before row closure in order to coat the plant stems with your fungicide spray for more complete protection.

By the time of your second fungicide application, that pulse crop will be fully canopied. This is where high water volumes can help distribute fungicide further down to the plant’s lower leaves and stems.

On cereals, choose spray equipment according to the crop and fungicide target. For example, twin nozzles that spray forward and backward can help you coat higher, smaller targets — like wheat heads — to increase your level of protection at fusarium head blight timing.

David Forster is an agronomic service representative with Syngenta Canada.

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Going in with a post-harvest herbicide application also helps you control and clean up weeds that you may not have been able to hit pre-harvest due to the thick and tall crop canopy.

So, what’s the key to getting most out of your post-herbicide application? Pay attention to your temperature, timing and weed emergence. After you’ve swathed or harvested, look for new leaves to signal a good amount of weed regrowth, and give you a target to hit with your herbicide.

Keep an eye on the temperature, too. If you’ve had a frost, those emerging weeds can shut themselves down and not show any growth activity.

That’s why it’s best to wait a few hours for your field to warm up after a light frost — or two to three days when you’ve had a heavy frost — to ensure those weeds are growing again and that you’ll get the best possible herbicide coverage.

This agronomy tip is brought to you by David Forster, agronomic service representative, Saskatchewan North, with Syngenta Canada Inc.

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The secret to success in dealing with flea beetles is to get out and scout your fields so that you can keep tabs on how the insect pressure is intensifying. You might be seeing lots of shot holes and bite marks on the plants even if you’re getting only five to 10 per cent defoliation early on.

In general, the critical threshold that you’ll want to watch for is 25 per cent defoliation. Once you hit that point, get in and apply a foliar insecticide.

High in-season flea beetle pressure also brings to mind why it’s so important to achieve good, even plant stands at the beginning of the season. The more plants you have per square meter of soil, the better your crop will be able to absorb that early insect pressure and push past into the later growth stages.

This agronomy tip is brought to you by David Forster, agronomic service representative, Saskatchewan North, with Syngenta Canada Inc.

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Firstly, you need to use a higher water volume. Contact desiccants should be applied with at least 20 gal/ac of water, double what many systemic herbicides require. A desiccant is a true contact herbicide and will only drydown the foliage it directly contacts. Higher water volumes ensure that the desiccant distributes optimally across the leaf surface and deeper into the canopy.

• More Grainews: Drying with desiccants in pulse crops

Secondly, a crop desiccant is best applied in the evening. The reasons are two-fold. First, cooler evenings minimize evaporation of the desiccant solution, so the active ingredient has time to spread, along with the water, across the leaves. Second, diquat breaks down in sunlight. Therefore, an evening application results in less breakdown and a more complete drydown of the crop canopy.

Finally, be sure to use the proper surfactant at the proper rate, if required. With diquat-based products, you’ll need a non-ionic surfactant at the appropriate concentration. Alternatively, look for a product that has a built-in surfactant to minimize the risk of errors during mixing.

This agronomy tip first appeared in the July 22, 2014 edition of Grainews

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