Preparing for a Successful 2023 Planting Season: Burndown

Overview

Starting with a clean field gives your crops the best chance for a productive season. If weeds are already appearing in early spring, you might consider a burndown application to eliminate weeds that are looking to fight with your seedlings for sun, water and nutrients.

What You Should Know

• Burndown is a good practice for catching small weeds before they go to seed. Burndown can be especially helpful if you were unable to treat fields in the fall.
• Burndown is recommended in no-till operations, but can also improve weed control in tilled fields.
• Burndown and pre-emergence application may both be necessary, depending on weed pressures in your field. Pre-emergent products should also offer residual control to help keep new weeds from growing.

Figure 1 - Burndown allows you to kill off early season weeds and set up a clean field for planting.

Action Steps

1. Spray early: Early is better to stay ahead of nutrient-robbing weeds. However, be sure to consult the herbicide label directions for temperature guidance. Cold temperatures can reduce the effectiveness of some herbicides.
2. Use the recommended rate: Follow label directions. Using a less-than- recommended rate will likely only result in needing to apply more herbicide pre- or post-emergence. Making sure you understand how much active ingredient you are getting from your herbicides is key. There are many different types of 2,4-D and dicamba products, and rates can vary heavily from product to product. We recommend always contacting your local retailer or Corteva Crop Protection Territory Manager for specific rate recommendations that fit your acres.
3. Know the resistant weeds in your area: If your region is experiencing particular weed resistance issues, you may need to use a different class of chemistry to gain effective control.
4. Pay attention to plant back restrictions: Depending on your crop, some burndown herbicides may require you to wait a week or more before planting. Particularly if you are facing a compressed planting season due to weather, you may want to choose a burndown herbicide with no plant back restrictions for your crop.
5. Proper Timing: As with most chemistries, most of the burndown products will work better in warmer temperatures. If we are making applications on days when our temperatures dip into the low 50’s and 40’s, you can expect control to be slowed or reduced. We also need to be considerate of our plant-back restrictions for products like 2,4-D and always follow label instructions for the rate you are using. Remember, with Enlist E3® soybeans you have no plant-back restriction when utilizing an Enlist® herbicide!
6. Effective Burndown Herbicides: 2,4-D (may we suggest Enlist One®) and dicamba both are broad spectrum broadleaf herbicides that are strong on a large variety of weeds and will be the most common burndown partners. Metribuzin is a good product to consider for soybean burndown applications, especially where marestail presence is heavy. For Kochia control spray when Kochia is 4 inches or less, use a minimum of 15 gallons of water per acre, and for the best activity utilize COC or MSO. For corn, utilizing products that contain clopyralid, such as the new Resicore® XL and SureStart® II, will provide best-in-class control of large seeded broadleaves. Resicore® XL has a wide application window up to 24 inches tall corn, greater tank mix flexibility and has excellent crop safety. Another burndown product from Corteva is Elevore®. Elevore® has best-in-class control of marestail and is on-label for controlling marestail up to 8 inches tall as well as being labeled for corn and soybeans. If grass has already started to emerge, an addition of glyphosate is a great asset, however if using glyphosate with Enlist One® adding AMS to the tank mix will increase the level of control for both products.
7. Residual Herbicides: We need to always utilize residual herbicides when creating our weed control plans, and burndown is the easiest time to add one in. Soybean products containing Group 14 chemistries like sulfentrazone (Authority®) and flumioxazin (Valor®) are our best options to add into any pre-emerge application. Key soybean products from Corteva would include Trivence®, Sonic®, and Surveil®. Key corn products would include Resicore® XL, SureStart® II, FulTime® NXT, and Keystone® NXT. Remember to contact your local retailer or Corteva Crop Protection Territory Manager for specific product and rate recommendations that fit your acres
8. Plan now for your in crop layered residual: In order to keep good control of waterhemp, giant ragweed and other troublesome weeds please make sure to include a layered residual in your post application. For soybeans, products like EverpreX® (s-metolachlor) a group 15 herbicide is excellent to add another layered residual in a program approach. For corn using post program like Resicore® XL in a two-pass program is also great option.

Brian Weller
Western Region
507.456.3034

Rod Moran
Western Region
507.456.3034

Dan Ritter
Central Region
219.863.0583

Branden Furseth
Northern Region
608.513.4265

Mark Gibson
Eastern Region
260.330.8968

Amanda Goffnett
Eastern Region
989.400.3793

Ryan Mueller
Eastern Region
989.400.3793

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