Technical effectiveness and economic return of the glyphosate-resistant hairy fleabane management in soybean pre-emergence

Abstract

The commercial release of the Roundup Ready^® soybean helped the management of weeds and allowed the application of glyphosate during the post-emergence of the culture. However, the intensive use of this herbicide selected resistant hairy fleabane biotypes and hindered control. Many works evaluate the technical effectiveness of herbicides, however, most of the times; the economic return is not analyzed when making decisions about the choice of which herbicide to apply. The aim of this work was to evaluate the technical effectiveness and the economic return of applying herbicide associations and rates in the management of glyphosate-resistant hairy fleabane, in soybean pre-emergence. The experiment was carried out in randomized block design with four replicates. Treatments consisted in associations among glyphosate, 2.4-D, saflufenacil, diclosulam, chlorimuron-ethyl and flumioxazin. The analyzed variables were hairy fleabane control and phytotoxicity on soybean on 7, 14, 21 and 35 days after the application and yield of soybean. The economic return of treatments was calculated according to the cost of the herbicides and the soybean yield. Results about control and yield shows that the association of glyphosate, chlorimuron-ethyl, flumioxazin and 2.4-D and of glyphosate, chlorimuron-ethyl, 2.4-D and saflufenacil presented the best technical effectiveness response and the use of glyphosate, chlorimuron-ethyl and 2.4-D presented the best economic return. However, the increase in chlorimuron-ethyl rates and its association with flumioxazin did not improve the control of hairy fleabane.