Efficacy of Starch-Encapsulated Formulations of Atrazine Containing Two or Three Herbicides in Same Granule

Abstract

Field experiments were conducted in 1990, 1991, and 1992 to evaluate and compare the efficacy of commercial herbicide formulations with starch encapsulated granules that contain one, two, or three herbicides. Atrazine in combination with alachlor or metolachlor composed the two-component granules and the addition of dicamba to both composed the three-component granules. All starch-encapsulated formulations were produced by twin screw extrusion technology and evaluated in two granule sizes, 1.4 to 0.5-mm (14 to 20 mesh) and 0.85 to 0.43-mm (20 to 40 mesh). Active ingredient rates applied were selected for the existing soil conditions and combination granules contained active ingredients proportional to premixed commercial formulations available or suggested for tank mixes. Evaluations were performed under conventional, chisel, and no-tillage systems. PRE and PPI applications of starch encapsulated two-component (atrazine-alachlor) in 1990 controlled giant foxtail (except at the low rate with large granule size), redroot pigweed, and common lambsquarters excellently but control of velvetleaf was fair to poor. Smaller-sized granules were generally more effective for controlling weeds than the larger-sized granules. In 1991, starch-encapsulated two-component (atrazine-metolachlor) granules applied both PRE and PPI in conventional, chisel, and no-till systems gave results similar to 1990 with the small granules more effective on velvetleaf. The addition of dicamba in the granule to form three-component starch-encapsulated granules in 1992 resulted in control of velvetleaf, ivyleaf morningglory, and jimsonweed statistically equal to commercial formulations except in one case of no-till corn. In our experiments, herbicide formulations (granular vs. commercial) had no significant effect on corn yield in 28 out of 31 treatments. These data indicate that if the experimental three-component starch-encapsulated formulations of corn herbicides used in these studies were optimized they could become as efficacious as commercial formulations presently on the market. This is the first report of research containing data on two- and three-component starch-encapsulated granular formulations.