That was the core message Brendan Metzger delivered at the Manitoba Agronomists Conference.

The chemistry itself, he said, has not suddenly changed. What has changed is the cropping context around it, particularly as glufosinate moves into systems that expose management mistakes more quickly and more consistently.

WHY IT MATTERS: With glufosinate use expanding on the Prairies, careful management will matter more in slowing resistance pressure.

Metzger, a senior herbicide biologist with BASF, said the risk facing Liberty is real and accelerating. Glufosinate resistance has already emerged in other regions, and Prairie farmers are now using the product in crops and rotations that strip away many of the safeguards that once kept resistance at bay.

Reports of glufosinate-resistant waterhemp in several U.S. Midwest states, and kochia escapes being reported in North Dakota, suggest resistance is now close at hand.

Liberty still works, he said, but the margin for error is narrowing.

Longevity so far

To understand why management now matters so much, Metzger first walked agronomists through why glufosinate avoided resistance for so long in Western Canada, especially when compared to glyphosate.

Glufosinate was introduced in the mid-1990s, at roughly the same time glyphosate-tolerant crops entered the market. Yet while glyphosate resistance emerged relatively quickly, Liberty avoided that outcome for nearly 30 years.

“It’s been largely a success story,” Metzger said.

“There’s been no documented cases of resistance to glufosinate in Western Canada.”

He said that longevity had little to do with glufosinate being inherently resistance-proof. Instead, it reflected how and where it was used.

For much of its commercial life, glufosinate lagged behind other herbicides in total acres treated. Lower overall use meant lower selection pressure on weed populations. Just as importantly, most glufosinate applications in Western Canada occurred in canola.

Canola’s competitiveness played a quiet but critical role.

Rapid early growth and quick canopy closure suppressed escapes and reduced the number of weeds exposed to sub-lethal doses. That cultural weed control helped mask small mistakes that might otherwise have contributed to resistance.

“So we have the cultural weed control aspect working in our favour as well,” Metzger said.

Rotation added another layer of protection. Even in relatively simple canola–wheat systems, glufosinate was rarely applied back-to-back on the same acres. Breaking up modes of action further reduced resistance risk.

Those factors combined to give Liberty a long runway, Metzger said, but that runway is now shortening.

Less competitive

Metzger warned that as soybean acres expand, so will selection pressure on glufosinate.

While Liberty-enabled canola already accounts for a large share of Prairie acres, Metzger said the more consequential shift is happening in soybeans as seed companies move aggressively toward glufosinate-tolerant platforms across North America.

Roughly a quarter of western Canadian soybean acres are expected to be Liberty-enabled in 2026. Metzger said that expansion is being driven largely by widespread glyphosate resistance, with glufosinate long viewed as a relatively underused alternative.

Unlike canola, soybeans are far less competitive.

Wider row spacing and slower canopy closure mean fewer escapes are hidden. Weeds that survive an application are more likely to remain visible, reproduce and contribute seed back to the soil.

Corn shares some of those same characteristics. In those systems, Metzger said, poor management is more likely to translate directly into resistance risk.

Another concern for Liberty is that its mode of action amplifies the consequences of poor application.

Glufosinate is a contact herbicide. It only affects weeds it lands on, and those weeds must receive a lethal dose to be killed. That makes the product especially vulnerable to sub-lethal exposure.

“A sub-lethal dose, whether that means not adding enough product to the sprayer or not getting it to the target at the proper dose, can select for resistant individuals over time,” said Metzger.

Risk management

Delta T, which relates spraying conditions to air temperature and humidity, is particularly important for water-based formulations such as Liberty, said Metzger.

Compared to oil-based products, glufosinate droplets take longer to cross the leaf cuticle, increasing the risk that moisture evaporates before the active ingredient can move into the plant.

Metzger said Liberty remains an effective tool, but he cautioned against assuming it will behave the same way it did when most acres were in canola.

As more soybean and corn acres shift toward glufosinate tolerance, resistance risk will be shaped less by the chemistry itself and more by how consistently it is managed.

Coverage, timing and weed size are no longer details to fine-tune, Metzger said. They are the difference between preserving the tool and quietly selecting for trouble.

Liberty still works, but on today’s Prairie farms, it no longer forgives mistakes.

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Aaron Hager, a University of Illinois weed scientist, reported last month that Illinois had several locations where waterhemp had developed resistance to glufosinate, a commonly used herbicide in North America.

Other states in the region have the same problem.

Why it matters: When and wherever they arrive on the Prairies, weeds with Group 10 herbicide resistance will further limit growers’ control options, especially against weeds already resistant to multiple other herbicide groups.

“Four states in the U.S. (including Illinois) are all going to come out (soon) with glufosinate-resistant waterhemp,” said Joe Ikley, a weed scientist at North Dakota State University.

Ikley made the comment Jan. 7 at St. Jean Farm Days, a farmer conference at St. Jean Baptiste in southern Manitoba’s Red River Valley.

The news from the U.S. Midwest is concerning because farmers are running out of options to control waterhemp, a member of the pigweed family. It has already developed resistance to seven different modes of action.

For farmers on the northern Great Plains, it’s a matter of time before waterhemp with resistance to glufosinate is confirmed, Ikley said.

“If it can evolve resistant to a herbicide in Illinois, there’s no reason it can’t do it in North Dakota or the Canadian Prairies.”

Waterhemp was first discovered in Manitoba in 2017, and it’s now present in a wide geography within the province.

It hasn’t been confirmed in Saskatchewan, but weed experts are asking farmers and agronomists to maintain a close watch for the troublesome weed.

While waterhemp is an extremely difficult weed, a bigger risk to western Canadian farmers would be glufosinate-resistant kochia.

Repeated doses

On the market in Canada since 1993, glufosinate ammonium today is the only member of Group 10, nitrogen metabolism inhibitors.

It’s sold on the Prairies mainly by BASF under the brand name Liberty, though several generic versions have come to market since the chemical’s patent expired.

In North Dakota, farmers apply glufosinate to 10 million acres of land every year, Ikley said.

So, kochia plants are receiving repeated doses of glufosinate, and resistance is on the horizon.

More North Dakota farmers are reporting escapes, where the herbicide fails to kill a kochia plant. If glufosinate is applied to 100 kochia plants in field and 95 die, the remaining five plants are “escapes.”

“We see escapes almost every year,” Ikley said.

“Can we prove those ones to be resistant, yet? It’s just a matter of time … until we get a population that is indeed resistant.”

It’s impossible to predict when glufosinate-resistant kochia will arrive in North Dakota or the Prairies.

But Ikley is particularly worried about canola growers, who rely on glufosinate to keep weeds in check.

InVigor hybrids dominate the canola acres in Western Canada, which are genetically modified to have tolerance to glufosinate.

“The issue, when I look at kochia and canola right now, is that the options are glyphosate or glufosinate,” Ikley said.

“And we (already) have widespread glyphosate resistance (in kochia).”

At St. Jean Farm Days, an agronomist delivered a blunt assessment of the risk.

If glufosinate-resistant kochia appears on the Prairies, farmers are “hooped.”

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The University of Arkansas last week announced its ag researchers had found glufosinate-resistant Palmer amaranth in crops in two eastern Arkansas counties across the Mississippi River from Memphis.

The finding “does not appear to be widespread” in those counties, they said — and among other weeds, only four grasses are known to have developed glufosinate resistance, three of those in other countries overseas.

But the finding may not bode well for the chemical’s expanded use against weeds that have already developed resistance to other chemistries.

Bayer, for example, recently expanded its Roundup Ready Xtend crop system to include a new line of XtendFlex soybeans, which have tolerance not only to glyphosate and dicamba but to glufosinate as well, partly as a way to expand growers’ options against herbicide-resistant weeds throughout the growing season.

Glufosinate, a broad-spectrum Group 10 product, “is one of the few remaining chemistries that are effective in controlling pigweed in soybeans and other crops,” Arkansas extension weed scientist Tom Barber said Thursday in a release.

“We have put a lot of selection pressure on glufosinate the last 10 years or more, so no, it is not surprising… and likely was inevitable.”

The resistance in Palmer amaranth was first reported last summer in two “fields of concern” in Mississippi County where three applications of the chemical had failed to control the weed. “These two fields had that ‘look’ and were very suspicious, to say the least,” Barber and other researchers wrote in a blog post last week.

Putting the strain of Palmer amaranth through the screening process to confirm resistance, the researchers found the biotype from Crittenden County was 3.5 times less sensitive to glufosinate, and the cases in Mississippi County “appear to be at least 15 times more resistant than the susceptible standard used for evaluation in the screening.”

Without glufosinate, “in cotton or soybean crops, the options are limited, especially post-emergence,” Barber said, recommending the use of two residual herbicides at planting, along with “paraquat at planting to make sure we start clean.” Dicamba and use of the Enlist system are also options.

However, “the best plan is to rotate to corn or rice on the acre if possible as well as remove all pigweed escapes, which will reduce seed returning to the seed bank,” he said.

Tommy Butts, also an extension weed scientist and co-author of the blog post, said growers can slow herbicide resistance in weed populations by avoiding “overreliance” on a single control method.

“Now, more than ever, it is a must to diversify weed control strategies and implement an integrated weed management approach including cultural, mechanical and preventative tactics,” he said. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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The Reuters news service on Tuesday reported safety certificate approvals from China’s ministry of agriculture and rural affairs for biotech traits including:

• Bayer’s 88302, or TruFlex canola, approved in Canada since 2012;
• BASF’s RF3, a Liberty herbicide-tolerant canola, also approved in Canada since 2012;
• DAS-44405-6, DowDuPont’s Enlist E3 soybeans, approved in Canada since 2013;
• DP 4114, DowDuPont’s Qrome corn, approved in Canada since 2013; and
• BASF’s glufosinate-tolerant SYHT0H2 soybeans, approved in Canada since 2015.

Approval of traits in China is particularly important because it’s Canada’s largest canola seed customer, the Canola Council of Canada said Tuesday.

Recently, the council noted, Canada and China agreed to double agriculture trade by 2025. Canada’s canola sector “will continue to work with China to improve trade predictability.”

China’s approvals will allow the canola industry to proceed with full commercialization of the TruFlex trait and RF3, the council said.

Once those two traits and Corteva’s Optimum GLY — a proprietary glyphosate-tolerant canola which got Canadian regulatory approval in 2012 — are fully commercialized, “the industry expects growers will produce $400 million more canola every year using the same amount of land,” the council said.

New genetics, in combination with the new traits, are expected to improve yields, weed control, disease resistance and crops’ resilience to heat, cold, drought and excess moisture and to reduce harvest loss, the council said.

“Not only will we be able to produce more canola to meet growing world demand, we’ll also be able to do it sustainably, using the same land base,” council president Jim Everson said.

The TruFlex, RF3 and Optimum GLY traits, while all approved in Canada since 2012, were held back from full commercialization until approved in “major markets,” the council said, in keeping with the council’s market access policy.

Council members “voluntarily follow the policy to ensure new innovation does not create trade barriers in Canada’s top canola markets.”

“Seed developers invest hundreds of millions of dollars developing a new trait, but they understand the importance of commercializing seed technology responsibly,” Everson said in a council release. “They know it’s in everyone’s best interests to keep an eye on the long game, and not just short-term opportunities.”

The council noted a “significant milestone” in the traits’ approval came in November in Beijing, when “timely approval of biotech products” was one of the commitments made by Canada and China during the Economic and Financial Strategic Dialogue, an event co-chaired by federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau and International Trade Diversification Minister Jim Carr.

Reuters noted Tuesday the new approvals were granted while a U.S. trade delegation met with Chinese counterparts this week.

The news service quoted an unnamed China representative of a U.S. agricultural industry association describing the approvals as “a goodwill gesture towards the resolution of the trade issue” between the U.S. and China.

Bayer, for one, said Tuesday it’s “encouraged that fundamental improvements in the regulatory process in China remain an important focus in ongoing negotiations with governments that have significant exports to China.”

While the Chinese ag ministry has publicly posted information regarding the new approvals on its website, Bayer said Tuesday it’s “awaiting final documentation, which we expect to receive shortly.”

“After five years of waiting to introduce (TruFlex) to Canadian and U.S. farmers we are thrilled to move forward with commercialization in 2019,” Jon Riley, trait launch lead with Bayer, said Tuesday in a release.

Stewarded plot trials and field demonstrations of TruFlex ran at several locations across Western Canada last summer, the company said, noting it expects TruFlex canola to be seeded on about a million acres in its first season.

Bayer said Tuesday it plans to offer TruFlex in its Dekalb seed brand and via other Canadian licensees such as Nutrien Ag Solutions and Canterra.

Monsanto, which had developed TruFlex before its takeover by Bayer in June, said last spring that TruFlex is to become the company’s new base trait for canola.

The TruFlex trait allows canola growers the option to apply the company’s Roundup WeatherMax glyphosate herbicide in-crop at a rate of 1.33 litres per acre for a single application, or 0.67 litres/acre for two applications, controlling 24 new weed species.

That’s compared to the maximum permitted rate of 0.5 litres/acre for a single application or 0.33 litres/acre for split applications with the company’s current Genuity Roundup Ready canola lines. — Glacier FarmMedia Network

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To be sure, several smaller companies remain in the game — but with marriages now consummated for Dow Chemical and DuPont, and for Syngenta and ChemChina, Bayer’s pending takeover of Monsanto and, now, BASF getting set to buy Bayer Crop Science assets, Canada may soon see only four big players in pesticide and seeds.

BASF’s Canadian business director, Ron Kehler, spoke to Canadian farm media Tuesday about that company’s deal to buy seed and herbicide businesses from Bayer.

Asked about competition in the seed and chemical sectors, Kehler said the increased costs of stricter environmental regulations, trait development and finding new modes of action are raising the bar as to who can be a significant player.

“The price to play, or to be in this business, continues to go up,” he said.

For 5.9 billion euros (C$8.7 billion), BASF will get Bayer’s traits and breeding for soybeans, cotton and canola, and, significantly, its Liberty (glufosinate ammonium) herbicide business and LibertyLink and InVigor traits.

The deal also gives BASF Bayer’s seed processing facility in Lethbridge, chemical formulation and distribution facilities in Regina and a seed breeding centre in Saskatoon.

Along with those existing products, BASF has purchased Bayer’s research and development pipeline — including, Kehler said, “more than 250 patent families.”

With this purchase, 1,800 Bayer employees from commercial R+D, breeding and production — of whom 300 are within scope in Canada — will transfer to BASF.

Bayer is divesting these assets in the context of its acquisition of Monsanto.

Kehler described Bayer’s development of LiberyLink technology as “an amazing business story,” currently growing by about 14 per cent per year.

BASF’s purchase of Bayer’s LibertyLink canola, soybean and cotton portolio, he said, will be “highly complementary” to BASF’s existing product portfolio. Many of the large agricultural chemical companies are also now in the seed business.

New to the seed business, BASF plans to use the newly-acquired LibertyLink varieties to “deliver more tools to support growers,” Kehler said.

Having a wider range of products to offer will give BASF staff more opportunities to connect with customers over the course of the crop year, and “partner with farmers in new ways.”

Although the purchase of Liberty, a Group 10 herbicide, will also be a valuable asset for BASF, “we want to offer new solutions for herbicide-resistant management by using glufosinate ammonium as an attractive mixing partner,” Kehler said.

Rotating chemical groups and using tank mixes as part of an integrated weed management program can help to slow the development of herbicide resistance in weeds.

BASF will also continue to build on the seed trait development it’s done in the past.

“We’re now able to fund more work in traits and continue to do the work that we’re doing on herbicide development, which is an area of key important to our research,” Kehler said.

Until the deal closes, Kehler said it will be “business as usual” for farmers dealing with BASF or Bayer.

The sale is conditional on Bayer closing its deal to buy Monsanto, which the German company has said it hopes to do early next year.

— Leeann Minogue is editor of Grainews at Griffin, Sask. Includes files from Maggie Van Camp of Country Guide at Blackstock, Ont.

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Bayer, which is bracing for the EU Commission to go into an in-depth antitrust assessment of the merger, said in a statement on Friday it would work closely with the authorities, reaffirming its goal to wrap up the transaction by the end of 2017.

“We can confirm receipt of the notification. The provisional deadline for the Commission to take a decision is 7 August,” an EU Commission spokeswoman said.

Bayer, whose request for U.S. approval is pending, last month pledged to make major asset sales to see the deal through, putting the Liberty herbicide and LibertyLink-branded seeds businesses on the auction block.

BASF said it was hoping for a bargain among antitrust-related selloffs and might overcome its traditional reluctance to expand into the seeds industry, while Switzerland’s Syngenta is keen to bolster its sub-scale seeds operations.

Bayer warned on Friday it would have to adjust its full-year outlook, citing high inventory levels at crop protection customers in Brazil and a weaker-than-expected consumer health business.

— Reporting for Reuters by Patricia Weiss and Foo Yun Chee; writing by Ludwig Burger.

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The divestment of the two global brands, a requirement imposed by South Africa’s Competition Commission on Sunday, will account for the bulk of asset sales worth about $2.5 billion which need to be made to satisfy competition regulators looking at the $66 million Monsanto deal, sources close to the matter have said (all figures US$).

“Bayer has agreed to these conditions and is evaluating how best to execute the imposed divestiture,” the German group said in its statement.

It would not comment on revenues, number of affected staff or the value of the assets.

While South Africa is a relatively small market for the two global agricultural supplies giants, the move marks the first time for Bayer to acknowledge it has to sell the two related Liberty brands, which compete with Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer and Roundup Ready seeds.

The planned divestitures are also widely expected to be required by competition regulators in larger jurisdictions, such as the U.S., where approval has been requested, and the European Union, where an application for approval has yet to be made.

“Bayer will continue working with regulators globally with a view to receiving approval of the proposed transaction by the end of 2017,” the company said, reaffirming an earlier goal.

LibertyLink seeds, mainly used by soy, cotton and canola growers, are an important alternative to Roundup Ready seeds for farmers suffering from weeds that have developed resistance to the Roundup herbicide, also known as glyphosate.

The spread of Roundup-resistant weeds in North America has been a major driver behind Liberty sales.

Monsanto, for its part, has responded by combining Roundup with older weed killer dicamba to finish off the Roundup-resistant weeds, while selling farm crops that withstand the plant-killing effects of both compounds.

As part of a global investment drive worth hundreds of millions of euros to double the global output capacity of Liberty since 2013, Bayer has built a production plant in Mobile, Alabama, to complement an existing facility in Frankfurt, Germany.

— Reporting for Reuters by Ludwig Burger in Frankfurt.

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