Syngenta’s Tendovo redefines preemergence weed control and delivers increased flexibility and yield potential for soybean producers.
Tristan Dittmer embraces any opportunity to be innovative with crop protection. The 26-year-old Iowa farmer was among the first soybean producers nationwide to use Tendovo® preemergence herbicide from Syngenta, the latest premix that combines three sites of action and three active ingredients to best guard against more than 70 yield-robbing weeds.
“It’s a one-stop shop, and it’s different enough to set you apart,” Dittmer said. “We talk a lot about everybody using the same chemistries all the time, so it’s nice to throw that wrench in there to change it up.”
Tendovo, which was registered by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in January 2022 and will be commercially available for the 2023 growing season, has helped redefine preemergence weed control and delivers increased flexibility and yield potential for growers.
As part of the Tendovo First Look Program, farmers working a total of a couple of hundred thousand acres from the Gulf of Mexico up to the north central United States have been seeing exactly how dynamically Tendovo functions and how it reduces incidents of crop stress and damage.
The herbicide establishes a thorough early-season weed management foundation, so much so that even at five weeks post-emergence, field trials showed that Tendovo provided greater than 90 percent control of broadleaf weeds and grasses, 89 percent of the time.1
During a season when many Iowa growers encountered delays due to rain and concerns over the newly instated June 20 cut-off date for dicamba (which is 10 days earlier than the 2021 growing season), Dittmer said he had some breathing room in those fields where he used Tendovo. As his rows remained clear of weeds longer than normal, he didn’t have to worry about burning through his residual too soon.
“On my farm, I tend to have a higher weed pressure, so it was nice with Tendovo to start clean and stay clean the way we wanted to this season,” said Dittmer, who is also a crop specialist with AgVantage FS in northeast Iowa. “I loved having that option, because it just gets you closer to canopy and closer to the finish line. You’re not one of those guys spraying early to re-beat the weeds that you already thought you had a jump on, and then cross your fingers hoping that the crop canopies in time.”
Across more than a dozen trials, Tendovo-treated soybean fields consistently canopied quicker, had better plant stands, and appeared healthier compared with those that used competitors’ herbicides. More of the crop was kept stress-free, virtually no damage to cotyledons was seen, and university trial data pointed toward a yield advantage of four- to five-bushels per acre.2
That would be a 6 percent to 8 percent yield improvement for someone like Dittmer, who averaged 65 bushels an acre last year, and it would be an even larger percentage improvement for many of his fellow Iowa growers, for whom averages of 60 bushels an acre are common. To boot, soybeans are also generally trading higher this year than they did over much of the past half decade.
This means more money in farmers’ pockets.
“When walking the fields, we could see a visual difference in bigger plants at emergence, which aided in a quicker canopy with larger root mass,” said Michael Sapetti with Central Commodity FS in Illinois. “With that being said, I also noticed better late season weed control due to quicker canopy.”
The active ingredients in Tendovo are metribuzin and cloransulam-methyl, which selectively control certain broadleaf weeds and grassy weed species, and the broad-spectrum S-metolachlor, which is crucial to general weed control.
“It offers a more robust way to control small-seeded broadleaf weeds, like Palmer amaranth, waterhemp, and others that keep growers up at night,” explained Jonathan Furasek, Product Lead with Syngenta Soybean Herbicides. “It also picks up more large-seeded broadleaf control, to avoid escapes of ragweed, cocklebur, and morningglories. Listening to feedback from growers and looking at where the gaps are in the chemistries and finding the right rates is important.”
Fields stay cleaner because of the comprehensive ability of Tendovo to shut down early germinating weeds, defending against weed escapes, and blocking weed seed bank buildup.
Sapetti emphasized the importance of sites of action in choosing an herbicide. So when something like Tendovo is able to combine proven ingredients and approaches to reach new levels of success, growers would do well to take notice.
“The more modes of action we incorporate into a chemistry program, the better for the farmer,” Sapetti explained. “That usually leads the conversation when talking chemicals.”
In addition to being a flexible and solid preemergence weed control option, Tendovo is compatible with any soil type, tillage system, geography, and soybean production system, including Roundup Ready®, Roundup Ready 2 Xtend®, XtendFlex®, LibertyLink®, Non-GMO, and Enlist E3® soybean traits.
Because of its versatility and multi-pronged effectiveness, it positions itself as a better deal compared to competitor products tied to rebate and bundle programs.
“It’s awesome. You work it in with whatever you’re doing. It has great mixing flexibility,” said Dittmer, whose soybean crop this season includes Syngenta’s NK25-C9XF seed.
“Generally speaking, farmers are planting soybeans earlier. It’s cooler, it’s wetter,” Furasek at Syngenta observed. “Other herbicides we’ve seen can stunt or thin-out stands, but we’re seeing Tendovo performing in a way that’s not holding a crop back, that’s allowing it to get off to a fast start and get to canopy quicker.”
Growers put a lot of investment into the seed they plant, so any time they see thinning stands or are losing plants or decreasing photosynthesis, it impacts their farming operation. Effective crop safety from a herbicide is vital on the path toward harvest.
Just ahead of fall, Dittmer said his Iowa soybeans “sure are looking good; they feel good. They’ve got good pods, and I’m excited for harvest. We’ve done really well with the rain, and we don’t have that weed pressure to battle against.”
This article was published on behalf of Syngenta. Visit this page to find a Syngenta Crop Protection Specialist near you.
Ryan Tipps is the founder and managing editor of AGDAILY. He has covered farming since 2011, and his writing has been honored by state- and national-level agricultural organizations.
