The Alberta Sugar Beet Growers want a national domestic sugar policy, which the organization says could lay the foundation for resurgence in the sector.

Such a policy would regulate the amount of sugar imported into Canada from cane sugar-producing countries like Brazil and India. That would shift focus to home-grown sugar beet production and processing.

“We’re the only G7 country that does not have a domestic sugar policy,” said Jennifer Crowson, the grower group’s executive director. “A sugar policy would protect the sugar beet market and the ability for us to expand the industry.”

The group says its growers produce only eight per cent of the sugar sold in Canada, while the remainder is imported cane sugar. The immediate goal of a domestic sugar policy, as laid out by the Alberta group and its national counterpart, the Canadian Sugar Beet Growers Association, would be to double sugar beets’ market foothold to 16 per cent of national sugar consumption. This would drive investment in refineries and open new grower opportunities.

“Other provinces like Manitoba used to produce sugar beets. If there was a sugar policy, we would be able to expand the market and potentially have other provinces start growing sugar beets again,” said Crowson.

Corporations have expressed interest in building beet sugar infrastructure if there was a policy in place, she added.

“Other industry people and corporations say that, in the event that there was a policy, they would come and build another processing plant.”

There’s at least one major hurdle: federal approval of a policy. That process is coming along slowly, but surely, Crowson said.

“It’s been a work in progress for a while, but we have recently been able to have a few meetings with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada,” she said. “We’re creating a working group going forward to look at some of the pieces of what domestic sugar policy could look like.”

Sugar shortage

Canadian sugar has featured in the news recently due to the ongoing strike at a Vancouver sugar processing facility that created a sugar shortage on store shelves.

Although a national sugar policy wouldn’t affect the chances of similar strike action, the expected industry growth could create more supply chain options in the event of disruption, proponents say.

“With the strike right now, the biggest factor is they’re just not operating, not that their source of sugar is not there,” said Crowson. “So as far as domestic sugar policy, it would secure that Canada has a more sustainable product right here that’s 100 per cent Canadian.”

The sugar beets under irrigation in southern Alberta and processed at the Lantic plant in Taber, Alta., represent almost the entirety of sugar production in Canada, said Crowson.

Rogers Sugar is the holding company of Lantic Inc., formed when Rogers Sugar Ltd. and Lantic Sugar Limited merged in 2008.

“There are beets that are grown in Ontario, but they’re exported to Michigan to be processed, so that doesn’t stay within Canada,” says Crowson. “So, we are the only source of 100 per cent Canadian sugar in Canada.”

Alberta’s sugar beet production comprises about 200 farm families who harvest about 840,000 tonnes of sugar beets every year.
There are three other sugar refineries under the company’s banner (Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto) but they process cane sugar sourced from India, Brazil and Vietnam.

Today, the Canadian sugar beet industry operates under a supply managed, quota-based system, said Crowson.

The ASBG manages these producer quotas from its permanent quota of 28,000-33,895 acres per year, depending on capacity of the Taber refinery. Contracted acreage can be reduced if the refinery is unable to process the permanent quota in a given year.

“The processor tells us how much we can grow each year and usually what happens is we end up with a 17 to 20 per cent reduction from our permanent quota,” she said.

“What that means, going into next year’s system, is out of that 33,895 acres, we’re going to have a 17 per cent reduction. That will be the maximum amount of acres our growers are able to grow.”

Any beets that don’t make it to the plant become a storage challenge for producers, she added. They have no other marketing options.

“The beets are stored in piles outside so as winter carries on, the beets do get frozen. That’s OK, but they can only stay frozen and still be a good product for so long. So come the end of February or beginning of March … those beets will start to deteriorate.”

In addition, it’s not uncommon in southern Alberta to get sudden stretches of warm weather that hasten beet deterioration. The latest harvest in November brought in 856,636 tonnes at an extractable sugar rate of just over 17 per cent.

Yield was high, considering that the number of planted acres was down. Due to weather and the lateness of the processor contract, producers grew 26,000 acres as opposed to the typical 28,000, Crowson noted.

— Jeff Melchior reports for Alberta Farmer Express from Edmonton.

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Wet conditions extended planting in Ontario, said Rob McKerrall, chair of the Ontario Sugarbeet Growers’ Association (OSGA).

“There was probably a third of the crop went in fairly early. It looks to be on track for a good crop year,” he said.

Most of this year’s crop was planted during the second half of May, with about 15 per cent having been sown during the first half of June, he said.

“We’ll keep our fingers crossed for it,” McKerrall said of the beets planted in June.

Unlike southern Ontario, Alberta has dealt with dry conditions throughout most of this year, but the province’s sugar beet growers were able to irrigate their crops, said Arnie Bergen-Henegouwen, president of the Alberta Sugar Beet Growers (ASBG).

“A couple of the irrigation districts restricted their water allocations,” he said, noting most of those restrictions have since been lifted.

“The crop is progressing well,” he said.

The Alberta sugar beet industry is centered in the Taber area, where Redpath Sugar operates a processing plant.

The ASBG president said farmers are paid according to the quality of their beets they deliver to the plant. Expectations for this year are for an average quality, which he said should fetch $50-$52 per tonne.

Ontario growers’ beets are purchased by the Michigan Sugar Co-operative in the U.S. McKerrall said farmers are expecting at least US$46 (C$60) per tonne, perhaps up to US$50.

Statistics Canada projected 37,400 acres of sugar beets to be planted this year, down from last year’s 46,600 but still among the most acres planted in recent years. Production-wise, the 2018 crop was the largest on record, at nearly 1.38 million tonnes.

The agency’s projection for Ontario was for 12,800 acres to have been planted, but McKerrall said some OSGA members weren’t able to get their entire crop in as the insurance deadline passed — something that never happened before, he said

Farmers should have around 9,500 to 10,000 acres planted, he added.

Farmers in Ontario grew sugar beets before official record-keeping began in 1908 and continued through to 1967. The industry resumed in the late 1990s as Michigan Sugar sought to source more beets.

Alberta was also predicted to have fewer acres this year at 24,600, down 4,000 from 2018, according to Statistics Canada. However, that’s still very much in line with the acres farmers planted over the last number of years.

Quebec grew sugar beets from 1944 to 1985 and Manitoba from 1940 to 1996. No other province has grown enough sugar beets to have been recorded by Statistics Canada.

— Glen Hallick writes for MarketsFarm, a Glacier FarmMedia division specializing in grain and commodity market analysis and reporting.

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Consumers have been pushing for years for greater transparency over what is in their food, fighting pushback from farmers who fear the labeling would curb demand for genetically engineered ingredients and food companies which said the label changes would be costly and confusing.

The long-awaited details released on Thursday by USDA came more than two years after lawmakers agreed on the requirements. The agency has been reviewing feedback from farmers, food companies and consumers who filed comments earlier this year.

“This ensures clear information and labeling consistency for consumers about the ingredients in their food,” Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said in a statement. “The standard also avoids a patchwork state-by-state system that could be confusing to consumers.”

GMO crops have had their genes altered using biotechnology.

The new requirements will provide some consistency and a clear plan for food companies that now need to overhaul their labels.

But consumer groups criticized USDA for saying companies need to use the term “bioengineered” rather than the more commonly used terms “genetically engineered” or “GMO.”

“The USDA has betrayed the public trust by denying Americans the right to know how their food is produced,” said Andrew Kimbrell, executive director at the Center for Food Safety.

USDA also excluded some highly processed ingredients such as sugar from beet and soyoil from mandatory labeling. That is a win for farmers of some crops, including sugar beet, who feared being labeled as GMO would reduce consumer demand for their products.

“We believe that it allows transparency for consumers while following the intent of Congress that only food that contains modified genetic material be required to be labeled bioengineered under the law, with food companies having the option of providing additional information if they choose,” said Davie Stephens, a soybean grower from Kentucky and president of the American Soybean Association.

— Reporting for Reuters by Chris Prentice.

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Swiss ag chemical and seed firm Syngenta announced Thursday it will sell its sugar beet seed business to Danish forage and turf seed producer DLF Seeds for an undisclosed sum.

“Sugar beet seeds is a natural extension of our seeds business and it is an interesting high-value crop,” DLF Seeds CEO Truels Damsgaard said in a release.

“We see significant synergies within our technology and plant breeding tools benefiting both the sugar beet business and the forage and turf seed business.”

DLF “has a strong record in specialized seeds and in the integration of strategic acquisitions and offers excellent prospects for the sugar beet seeds business, enabling it to build on its expertise in serving industrial sugar producers,” Jeff Rowe, Syngenta’s president for global seeeds and North America, said in the same release.

The deal, pending “customary approval requirements,” is expected to close by the end of the third quarter of this year, the companies said.

DLF, owned mostly by a Danish seed growers’ co-operative, operates in Canada as DLF Pickseed, formed in 2013 when DLF bought Ontario-based forage seed firm Pickseed. — AGCanada.com Network

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The sale comes as AmCane is embroiled in litigation in the Court of International Trade over a 2014 trade deal signed by the U.S. and Mexico, which sets prices and a quota for the sweetener.

Cane refiners including Louis Dreyfus Commodities’ Imperial Sugar have said the trade deal threatens their supplies of raw sugar as well as their margins. On Feb. 22, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said it was mulling options as concerns mount over raw supplies.

AmCane CEO David Rosenzweig declined to comment on the reason for the sale or terms of the deal. He will be staying on for two years at Michigan Sugar during the transition, he told Reuters at the International Sweetener Colloquium in Miami.

For Michigan Sugar, the country’s third-largest beet sugar producer, the acquisition of AmCane’s refinery in Taylor, Michigan, and packaging facility in Toledo, Ohio, marks an expansion into specialty cane sugar products at a time when beet farmers are facing heightened scrutiny over ingredients made of genetically modified crops.

The co-operative sources beets from over 1,000 farmers in Michigan and southwestern Ontario and operates a piling station at Dover Centre, about 90 km northeast of Windsor.

The acquisition is expected to boost Michigan Sugar’s sales volumes by nearly 15 per cent and lift revenue by more than US$60 million, the statement said.

“Adding cane sugar products to our product lineup will allow us to better serve our customers while maintaining a keen focus on value-enhanced products,” Mark Flegenheimer, CEO of Michigan Sugar, said in the company statement.

AmCane makes liquid sugar and other products including evaporated cane juice.

— Chris Prentice reports on soft commodities and biofuels for Reuters, based in New York.

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Bill began his farming career with his parents and bought his first 80 acres from them in 1959. That same year, he received his diploma in agriculture from the University of Manitoba and his first sugar beet contract from Manitoba Sugar Company. Bill went on to buy the farm and increased its acreage producing seed, process and table potatoes, plus corn, canola, cereal grain and beans. He incorporated the farm to a family-held corporation in 1976 as W.J. Siemens Farming Co. Ltd. In 1986 Bill and MaryAnne were honoured with the Rhineland Agricultural Society Farmer Achievement Award. The farm further expanded becoming a shareholder in a farm near Bagot. In 2012 farming acreage and irrigation was again increased with the acquisition of a farm near Katrime. Ongoing initiatives have grown the operation to include the third generation.

Bill provided leadership to the sugar beet and potato industries at the local, national and international level. He served terms as president of the World Association of Beet and Cane Growers and the Keystone Vegetable Producers’ Association, promoting growth in the industry, lobbying governments and negotiating contracts on behalf of the growers. He also served as a delegate to the Potato Marketing Association of North America and the Canadian Horticultural Council. In 1993, Bill received honorary membership in the Manitoba Institute of Agrologists in recognition of his contributions to the agriculture industry.

Bill has also been recognized for his various activities in the community. As a youth, he was involved in 4-H garden, beef, sugar beet and dairy projects winning the 1957 Manitoba Dairy Cattle Breeders Association award. For his continued involvement in 4-H as a leader, he was given the Canadian Council on 4-H Leadership Award in 1970. He received the Governor General’s Commemorative Medal in 1993 and the Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal in 2012. Bill was also active in Community Economic Development organizations and was named Winkler Citizen of the Year in 2011. As members of the Winkler Heritage and Horticultural Society, Bill and MaryAnne led the development of the Bethel Heritage Park. They are also active members of their church.

Bill’s service to the agricultural industry and to his community is well respected by producers and fellow citizens.

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But that’s reality for many farmers in the mid-southern United States.

Glyphosate, “the world’s greatest herbicide,” is no longer effective there due to an explosion of glyphosate-resistant weeds caused by a lack of agronomic diversity, says University of Arkansas weed scientist Jason Norsworthy.

Canadian farmers must take steps to avoid the same fate, Norsworthy and other experts warned during Bayer CropScience’s inaugural agronomy summit here last month.

Fifty per cent of Arkansas’ cotton fields are now hand weeded and some producers have even lost their farms, Norsworthy said.

Canadian farmers are also at risk, said Neil Harker, a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada at Lacombe, Alta.

“If we go to the same intensity with one, single-trait rotation like RR (Roundup Ready) corn, RR cotton, RR soybean like they have, which we have the potential to do in Western Canada… we’re going to be in a similar situation,” he said.

Western Canada has some advantages over Arkansas. Most crops are grown in narrow rows, making them more competitive with weeds. The growing season is shorter and glyphosate isn’t applied as often.

“But we could be in a similar situation if we go the same direction,” Harker cautioned. “We’re just a few years behind in terms of our selection pressure.”

Protecting the resource

During his formal address Harker emphasized herbicides are “a precious, limited resource.”

“We’re approaching a cliff,” he said. “If we don’t take steps to stop weed resistance we’ll fall back on a time when all weeds were hand weeded. Every time herbicides are used in any setting, weeds evolve by developing resistance.”

Harker said the problem is that farmers grow Roundup Ready canola, which is sprayed with glyphosate, too often because it’s profitable.

A non-selective herbicide, glyphosate is the most applied weed killer in Western Canada. In 2012 a full rate of glyphosate was applied to the equivalent of 114.7 million acres in the West, Harker’s data shows. Since there are only 110 million cropped acres, many acres received more than one full-rate application.

In contrast, all the other herbicides combined were applied to the equivalent of 112.4 million acres. More glyphosate was applied to western fields than all other herbicides combined.

“That results in tremendous selection pressure so it shouldn’t be a surprise we have resistant weeds,” Harker said.

Scientists believe about one weed in every billion is naturally resistant to a herbicide. Applying a herbicide repeatedly kills the susceptible weeds and leaves or “selects” the resistant ones.

Canada already has some glyphosate-resistant weeds. The first documented case was giant ragweed in Ontario in 2009 followed by Canada fleabane in 2011, also in Ontario.

Glyphosate-resistant kochia was confirmed in Alberta and Saskatchewan in 2012.

Not only are Canadian farmers at risk of creating more homegrown glyphosate-resistant weeds, but also they are almost certain to import them in feed and equipment from the U.S., Norsworthy said.

Resorting to hoes

Glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth infests 61 per cent of Arkansas soy acres and 87 per cent of its cotton acres. More than 2.5 million acres are affected even though the first resistant Palmer amaranth wasn’t discovered in Arkansas until 2006 — 10 years after Roundup Ready soybeans were first introduced.

“We’ve abandoned fields as a result of resistance,” Norsworthy said. “And here’s one that’s probably going to be a shocker for everyone in this room — we’ve had individuals who completely lost the family farm as a result of glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth.”

So how did things get so bad?

“All we did was plant Roundup Ready crops… and we sprayed with only one herbicide and that was Roundup (glyphosate),” he said. Spraying weeds at sublethal rates to cut costs, or spraying weeds that were too big, also contributed.

Now some Arkansas cotton growers pay up to $250 an acre to get their fields hand weeded.

“If we lose a herbicide we’re right back to steel (machinery to control weeds) so we really do need to take care of our herbicides,” warned Stephen Lindell, Bayer CropScience’s lead herbicide chemist based in Frankfurt, Germany.

With glyphosate’s early success, pesticide companies wrongly assumed new herbicides were unnecessary and cut research. As a result there hasn’t been a weed killer commercialized with a new mode of action in almost 25 years.

While new herbicides are needed, they alone aren’t the answer, Lindell, Harker and Norsworthy agreed. The key, they said, is diversity.

“Using the same tactics year after year are going to fail,” Norsworthy said.

Farmers need to rotate herbicide modes of actions and crops, Harker said. Winter cereals, early silage and perennial crops should be added to the mix.

He also recommends upping seeding rates and growing taller, more weed-competitive crops.

Destroying weed seeds during or after harvest will become an important tool, he predicted.

Other options

Australian farmers are experimenting with the Harrington Seed Destructor — a mill pulled behind a combine that captures and pulverizes seeds leaving the combine. Harker predicts that machine will be placed inside the combine and sold as an option.

“Start clean and stay clean,” is Norsworthy’s advice.

“The threshold for those weeds that are resistance prone should be zero, if we’re going to try to manage the soil seed bank in resistance.”

Farmers also need to learn weed biology so they know the best time to spray.

Make a herbicide application the best it can be by applying a lethal dose, using good-quality water and applying lots of volume at a speed where weeds are well covered.

In Arkansas the mouldboard plow is sometimes used because it can bury small weed seeds so deep they can’t emerge. Instead of dealing with millions of weed seeds they are cut to hundreds, but that technique can only be done once, he said.

“Herbicides alone are not going to be the complete answer,” Norsworthy said. “Herbicides are going to be the backbone of what we do, but it’s going to take some other practices that we’re going to have to integrate… if we’re going to be successful from a resistance-management standpoint.”

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WGRF executive director Garth Patterson confirmed the funding in an interview May 6.

Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada’s Hugh Beckie, a world leader in herbicide-resistant weed surveys, will work with officials from Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives on the project.

Although glyphosate-resistant kochia has not been scientifically documented in Manitoba, both farmers and Beckie believe it exists.

In a survey conducted by Stratus Agri-Marketing 202 Manitoba farmers said they believe 23,000 acres are infested with the weed. The number might be even higher, Beckie said in a recent interview.

“Since it’s so widespread in Saskatchewan and Alberta now why wouldn’t it be in Manitoba, especially in the southwest where kochia is such a prevalent weed,” he said.

Glyphosate-resistant kochia was discovered at multiple sites in southern Alberta in 2011 and in southern and central Saskatchewan in 2012.

“GR (glyphosate-resistant) kochia will spread rapidly,” the project proposal states. “We have a brief monitoring period to support a proactive response to this pending problem in Manitoba. The proposed survey is an important component of that response.”

Troublesome

While all herbicide-resistant weeds are a concern to farmers, glyphosate-tolerant ones are even more troublesome because glyphosate is the most applied herbicide in the world and widely considered to be the most important. Glyphosate is key to zero- and minimum-tillage operations because it replaces cultivation as a means of weed control.

Farmers can delay the development of herbicide-tolerant weeds by rotating herbicides with different modes of action, applying more than one mode of action at the same time, and where possible, not applying a herbicide at all. But once herbicide-resistant weeds show up early detection and eradication can prevent their spread.

“By alerting growers at an early stage to the presence of GR kochia, we can increase the adoption of preventive and control measures to reduce the evolution and spread of the resistant biotype,” the project proposal states. “Because GR kochia will generally be more costly to control than non-kochia, early detection is critical to mitigate cost of herbicidal control and slow its rapid spread via seed (tumbleweed) or pollen.”

Crops such as soybean, potato, sugar beet, bean, chickpea, or sunflower have no in-crop herbicide options to control glyphosate-resistant kochia, the proposal says. Other crops, including canola and field pea, have few herbicide options.

“Detection and grower awareness are the key prerequisites for effective resistant weed management,” the proposal says.

Search

The search for glyphosate-resistant weeds will be done in southern Manitoba over three weeks in the September to October period. Kochia seeds will be collected and then tested. Results will be available to farmers by March 31, 2014.

Growers will be informed if herbicide-resistant kochia is identified, but exact locations and grower names will be kept confidential, the project proposal says. Confirmed sites will be mapped and the information shared via websites and extension networks.

The WGRF is most associated with funding the development of new crop varieties through the checkoff it receives from western farmers’ wheat and barley sales and its endowment fund. While the WGRF is committed to continued varietal development, it will also fund projects such as the glyphosate-resistant kochia survey, agronomy, pest management, crop storage and crop utilization, Patterson said.

The WGRF invested $7.4 million in those areas last year and is committed to investing even more. Over the next four years the WGRF will pull $15 million from its $90-million endowment to fund various projects, without drawing down the fund, Patterson said.

“We’re targeting over 100 new projects,” he said. “Our goal is to match that to at least $30 million through other private-public programs and all that is targeted to producer-related research.”

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The shockingly high Canadian numbers met with skepticism from some experts who suggest farmers might be mistaking hard-to-kill weeds with glyphosate resistance. But others say the farmers are probably right.

Even though there hasn’t been a single documented case of a glyphosate-resistant weed in Manitoba, the 281 Manitoba farmers surveyed said they believe there’s glyphosate-resistant kochia on 23,000 acres in this province.

“That’s probably an underestimate,” Hugh Beckie, an Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada research scientist based in Saskatoon who specializes in herbicide-resistant weeds, said in an interview May 3.

“The farmers are pretty perceptive when it comes to their suspicions about resistance. They’re usually on the mark,” he said noting it’s already prevalent in provinces west of Manitoba. “Why wouldn’t it be in Manitoba, especially in the southwest where kochia is such a prevalent weed?”

As resistance spreads, weed control will get a lot more expensive and complicated, especially for conservation tillers, he said.

Some weeds have natural herbicide resistance. It’s believed using the same herbicide in a field over many years kills the susceptible weeds leaving only the resistant ones.

“I think these surveys are important because they give us researchers, the public and other farmers an awareness about glyphosate resistance and (remind us) to keep a lookout on your farm,” Beckie said. “If a lot of farmers are perceiving they have glyphosate resistance then you should be looking in your fields as well.”

Closer look

The development of glyphosate-resistant weeds is relatively new to Canada. The first documented case was giant ragweed in Ontario in 2009 followed by Canada fleabane in 2011, also in Ontario.

Kochia seed collected in Alberta in 2011 was confirmed to be glyphosate resistant in 2012. Later in the year it was confirmed in Saskatchewan.

The 401 Alberta farmers surveyed said they had 126,000 acres infected with glyphosate-resistant kochia.

The 821 farmers surveyed in Saskatchewan said 502,000 acres are infested.

In both Ontario cases, the infestations were believed to have been small. Nevertheless, the 407 Ontario farmers surveyed said they believed they had glyphosate-resistant weeds on 270,000 acres of land — most of them (180,000 acres) infested with Canada fleabane.

Nasir Shaikh, provincial weed specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, Food and Rural Initiatives (MAFRI), said he doubts there is glyphosate-resistant weeds on 43,000 acres in Manitoba.

“I think it’s more of a farmer perception,” he said in an interview.

Farmers might think a weed is glyphosate resistant because it survived. But there are other explanations such as poor growing conditions. Bigger weeds are also harder to kill, he said. “Unless it has been tested in a lab, I’m not going to buy those numbers,” Shaikh said.

Gary Martens, an agronomy instructor at the University of Manitoba, said the numbers don’t mesh with his own observations. Last year he flew over some Manitoba canola fields looking for surviving weed patches. “If they’re not dead, they’re likely resistant,” Martens said. “And I just found nothing.”

But Martens said the survey does show farmers are more concerned. “But I don’t think they’ve changed their behaviour. They’re still growing Roundup Ready crops and they’re still spraying Roundup (glyphosate) more than once a year.”

Almost 42 per cent of the farmers surveyed said they were very concerned about glyphosate resistant weeds and another 35 per cent were somewhat concerned.

That’s similar to the concern among American farmers, where glyphosate resistant weeds are an even bigger problem, said Kent Fraser, vice-president of Stratus Agri-Marketing.

Alternatives

Rotating herbicides — specifically their modes of action or the way they kill weeds, is one way to delay herbicide resistance, Martens said. Applying a tank mix of herbicides with two different modes of action is even better, he said.

That’s especially important when applying glyphosate before seeding to “burn down” weeds, Beckie said. Failing to do that led to the development of glyphosate resistant kochia, he said.

“Farmers were just using glyphosate alone at high rates and that quickly selected for resistance. They should be tank mixing another mode of action whenever possible with glyphosate and to only spray glyphosate when it’s really needed…”

Just because a farmer seeds a Roundup Ready crop, which is tolerant to glyphosate, doesn’t mean the farmer has to apply glyphosate, Martens said.

“If it’s not economical to do so we shouldn’t be spraying, even if we plant a Roundup Ready crop.”

University of Manitoba research has shown some years farmers can skip an in-crop herbicide application and make as much or more money, Martens said. It’s possible through the combination of a pre-seed glyphosate treatment and growing a weed-competitive crop. There are more weeds in the crop, but not enough more to reduce yield, he said.

Meanwhile, a search for glyphosate resistant kochia is planned for this fall in Manitoba, Shaikh said. The Western Grains Research Foundation will contribute just over $17,000, foundation executive director Garth Garth Patterson said in an interview May 6.

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Florasulam, an off-patent Group 2 weed killer, is Priority’s active ingredient, which when tank mixed with glyphosate will have the same active ingredients as PrePass, Andrew Mann, MANA Canada’s general manager told reporters during a briefing Feb. 20.

“From a weed management, resistance management scenario it (Priority) should always be tank mixed (with glyphosate),” he said.

Priority herbicide lets farmers decide which glyphosate they want to use, Mann said. That’s consistent with MANA Canada’s philosophy of providing farmers with options in off-patent pesticides, he said.

The combination of florasulam and glyphosate controls a wide range of hard-to-kill broadleaf and grassy weeds, including dandelions, cleavers and glyphosate-tolerant volunteer canola.

“Florasulam plus glyphosate is a proven tank mix that uses two modes of action to control hard-to-kill weeds that glyphosate alone does not control,” Phil Somerville, MANA Canada’s new product development manager, said in a news release. “Bringing Priority to market allows farmers to use their preferred brand of glyphosate without compromising weed control.”

Priority can be applied pre-seed or post-harvest before seeding wheat (spring, winter and durum), barley and oats. Priority is also registered for use with glyphosate in chemfallow.

Priority will be sold in cases containing two, 6.4-litre jugs, which can treat 320 acres.

In a low-disturbance seeding system, application may occur just before seeding. In all other seeding systems application should occur one week before seeding, according to MANA Canada’s website.

Priority can be applied post-harvest after Oct. 1 but before freeze-up.

Priority can only be applied with ground equipment.

Do not apply if rain is forecast or if there is heavy dust on the weed leaves.

For improved control of larger annual and established perennial weeds, Priority can be tank mixed with a higher rate of glyphosate.

MANA hopes to add to its stable of off-patent pesticides over the next few years, Mann said.

“The next two to three years are very promising,” he said.

MANA Canada is owned by Israeli-based Makhteshim Agan Industries, the world’s largest chemical producer of off-patent chemicals, according to Mann.

The firm sold almost $2.7 billion of pesticides globally in 2011, accounting for about five per cent of the pesticide market.

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