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New Herbicide Heading to Regulators

Next-generation biotech tools for weed control work in tandem with new formulations of key active ingredients. This week BASF announced that its Engenia herbicide, which is a technologically advanced dicamba formulation, has been submitted to regulatory agencies in the United States. The company has to submit an extensive package of information about the product, how it works, toxicity information, and a host of other information for regulators to review.

According to the press announcement from BASF, farmers will be able to use Engenia in combination with other herbicides and agronomic practices, in a weed control system enabled by dicamba-tolerant crops currently in development.

Engenia will deliver broad-spectrum burndown of more than 100 annual broadleaf weeds, including tough, glyphosate-resistant weeds like Palmer amaranth, waterhemp, marestail, velvetleaf, morningglory and giant ragweed. According to BASF, field research demonstrates that the herbicide formulation is more effective than 2,4-D on many problem weeds, such as velvetleaf, marestail, giant ragweed and morningglory.

A registration decision by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is anticipated in a parallel timeframe with commercialization of a dicamba-tolerant soybean system. That system - Roundup Ready 2 Yield Xtreme, is coming from Monsanto, which is targeting 2014 for product launch, according to previous announcements.

BASF says commercialization of the dicamba-tolerant system will start with soybeans, with cotton, corn and canola to follow. Adds Rea: "Farmers have only a few post-applied herbicide options in soybeans. Engenia offers an additional site of action for postemergence control, and can also be used preemergence in dicamba-tolerant soybeans, giving farmers maximum application flexibility to target key weeds.