Cleavers continue to grow despite winter weather

UK - March 03, 2006

Occasional warm spells are all that’s needed for cleavers to start growing and threatening cereal yields, yet herbicide choice is limited, warns Dow AgroSciences.

Winter temperatures have prevailed across the UK in recent weeks, inhibiting growth of both crops and weeds. However, occasional warm days have encouraged cleavers, the biggest threat to UK cereal yields, to start growing.

As cleavers pose such a threat to cereal yields, the sooner they are removed the better. However, few weed control options are effective in cold conditions, particularly when night temperatures fall to freezing. Dow AgroSciences Boxer (based on florasulam) can cope with these conditions. Applied at 150 ml/ha it can achieve up to 98% control of cleavers, at temperatures as low as 2oC  provided the weeds are actively growing.

“The trend for lower seed rates means cereal crops are often very open and offer virtually no competition to cleavers as they start to grow away in the spring,” says David Roberts of Dow AgroSciences. “What’s more, as cleavers will grow away faster than cereals in the spring, growers need to tackle the problem early.”

As well as removing the cleavers menace, florasulam will give good control of other troublesome weeds such as volunteer oilseed rape, mayweed and charlock.