The corn herbicide from Syngenta effectively mitigates weed pressure during both wet and dry seasons
Most growing seasons since 2020 have been dogged by drought, which has complicated farmers’ efforts to plant corn earlier in the season and manage the logistics of large-scale acreage. A surprisingly wet 2024 didn’t improve the situation either, as excessively wet fields through the early months of spring meant that many growers had less than 5 percent of their planting completed even into late May.
The weather events that disrupt planting schedules are not insignificant … and some can be major. In 2023, for example, the United States experienced 28 distinct weather or climate events that each resulted in at least $1 billion worth of damage — most of which happened in the Corn Belt and involved precipitation in a significant way.
The bulk of what growers see, however, are more moderate phenomena, like a dry spell that reduces groundwater levels or the remnants of a tropical storm.
One of the things most impacted by these types of events is a grower’s weed management strategy. Dry conditions commonly lead to delayed or erratic weed emergence, while wet conditions can cause major fluctuations in soil and air temperature, which can impact herbicide performance.
That places a heavier burden on correctly choosing an effective approach to address weed pressure.
Active ingredients in herbicides have different water solubilities and soil binding properties, which means the weather farmers have during application and in the days and weeks afterward can impact the effectiveness of the product.
“When we talk about control of resistant weeds, specifically, it’s about how many active ingredients can you have beating up that weed,” said Dean Grossnickle, who is based in Iowa and serves as technical development lead for Syngenta. “And we’re trying to reduce our risk in both a wet season and a dry season.”
That goal positions advanced technologies like Syngenta’s Storen® corn herbicide as a particularly attractive option for growers. Storen has four residual active ingredients — Bicyclopyrone, Mesotrione, S-metolachlor and Pyroxasulfone — that work together to provide maximum residual performance.
As with all preemergence herbicides, a little moisture is required for the product to be absorbed into a plant’s roots — somewhere in the range of at least a half-inch to three-fourth-inch of rain — but the blend of active ingredients in Storen provides a unique foundation against weeds no matter how adverse the season’s weather has been.
Because some of the most notorious weed species are becoming increasingly resistant to many approaches — Palmer amaranth is resistant to six different modes of action while waterhemp is resistant to five — residuals are being seen as the most effective tool to combat these weeds.
“When we use pre-emerge residual herbicides like Storen, we’re attacking weeds before they have that metabolic capability to degrade herbicides,” said Travis Gustafson, an agronomic service representative based in Nebraska. “That’s kind of the secret to a good residual program: getting the weeds early before they’ve got a chance to put their defenses up.”
The expert combination of four active ingredients in Storen helps to ensure that growers will get the best coverage possible no matter the weather. Each of these ingredients, Gustafson explained, complement each other in controlling different weed species and will work differently in different weather conditions.
They all work hard to fight weeds, although one might stand out especially well depending on the weed species or environmental conditions. Either way, the grower is covered with the market’s maximum residual activity, which can be as long as nine weeks.1
“Storen gave me a flexible window for post application with the wet spring we had,” Andrew Carpenter, a grower in Cambridge, Nebraska, said during the 2024 growing season.
All told, Storen provides greater than 95 percent weed control nine out of ten times,2 and trials point to it delivering a 4 to 5 bu/A yield advantage at harvest.3
“No matter whether you get a wet year or a dry year or a hot year or a cold year, you’re going to have an active ingredient that’s functioning as an effective herbicide. By putting four active ingredients in one product, we’re spreading the risk out across a wide range of weather scenarios that could be thrown at us,” Gustafson said about Storen. “You can count on its performance year after year, because we’ve got a better chance that an active ingredient will work especially well in dry or wet conditions or any other situation.”
It’s at the center of one of the major hurdles growers face: adapting to Mother Nature. Farmers are unsure going into each season whether moisture will be lacking, overly abundant, or just right. Storen can help no matter what arrives.
Ultimately, Storen corn herbicide provides flexibility for growers who may be running multiple planters, planting corn and soybeans at the same time, and balancing time with their sprayers to effectively control weeds early. Storen can be applied early pre-plant (up to 28 days prior to planting) all the way up to before the corn crop reaches the V8 leaf stage.
“Waiting until weeds emerge and are active is the wrong time to be controlling weeds. That has allowed weed resistance to increase and render many chemistries ineffective in controlling weeds,” Gustafson said. “Using a product like Storen is one of the big keys we have for managing the most herbicide-resistant weeds across a multitude of situations.”
This article was funded by and 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.
