Browsing by Subject "Herbicides"

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Integrated management, analysis of mechanisms and early detection of resistant populations of Alopecurus myosuroides HUDS. and Apera spica-venti L. Beauv.
(2015) Kaiser, Yasmin; Gerhards, Roland
The control of pests is one of the major challenges in agricultural production worldwide. Especially weeds cause severe yield losses by competing with crops for light, space, water and nutrients. Due to the relatively low costs for acquisition and application of herbicides and a high control efficacy, chemical measures are predominantly applied to control weeds. In Europe, Alopecurus myosuroides HUDS. (blackgrass) and Apera spica-venti L. Beauv. (silky windgrass) are major weeds especially in winter wheat. The occurrence at high population densities in combination with a consequent use of herbicides with the same modes of action has resulted in the selection of resistant populations. Populations with target-site resistance (TSR) as well as non-target-site resistance (NTSR) could be confirmed for A. myosuroides and A. spica-venti. In contrast to the mechanisms of TSR, NTSR mechanisms are less investigated. Due to the steadily increasing number of putative herbicide resistant weed populations, the demand for rapid resistance tests is rising. The papers of the dissertation focus on the integrated management, the investigation of resistance mechanisms and the detection of herbicide resistant weed populations. The following research objectives have been examined within the four work packages (papers): – To develop a new methodology for a rapid detection of herbicide resistance and to confirm that results are comparable with classical greenhouse approaches – To investigate metabolism of herbicides in sensitive and resistant populations of A. myosuroides to gain comprehensive knowledge on resistance mechanisms – To evaluate the influence of agronomic factors on the probability of resistance occurrence and to develop a geo-referenced database for mapping the spread of herbicide-resistant A. spica-venti populations across Europe – To assess the influence of crop rotation and herbicide strategies on population development and herbicide resistance of A. myosuroides and crop yield The four papers come to the following results regarding the main research objectives: 1st paper: A laboratory test was developed to accelerate the detection of herbicide resistance. Therefore, A. myosuroides was cultivated in wellplates containing nutrient agar and herbicides. The evaluation of herbicide resistance was conducted by a sensor, measuring chlorophyll fluorescence. The results of the developed test corresponded well to the standard whole-plant pot tests in the greenhouse. In both tests sensitive and resistant populations were identified, however results of the Chlorophyll Fluorescence Imaging were available earlier. 2nd paper: Metabolism of herbicides was investigated in populations of A. myosuroides by using liquid chromatography - tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) to gain comprehensive knowledge on mechanisms of herbicide resistance. NTSR populations differed from sensitive and TSR A. myosuroides in form of an enhanced degradation of the active ingredient or metabolite, depending on the investigated herbicide. For the investigated herbicides (inhibition of ACCase and ALS) it was shown that herbicide metabolism plays an important role regarding herbicide resistance in A. myosuroides. 3rd paper: To evaluate the influence of agronomic factors on the probability of resistance occurrence in A. spica-venti, numerous populations were screened in the greenhouse. The corresponding field history obtained from questionnaires and the results of greenhouse assays were used to develop a GIS-database in which herbicide-resistant A. spica-venti populations were mapped. The statistical analysis revealed that a high percentage of winter crops in the crop rotation, together with conservation tillage, early sowing dates and high population density increased the occurrence of herbicide resistance in A. spica-venti. 4th paper: To assess the impact of crop rotation and herbicide strategies on A. myosuroides, field studies at two locations in Southern Germany have been carried out. Results show that densities of A. myosuroides increased in continuous winter wheat. The introduction of spring crops significantly reduced densities, even without using herbicides. Furthermore it has been shown that the risk of herbicide resistance was reduced when performing a consequent change of herbicide mode of action. The use of herbicides with only one mode of action increased the number of herbicide resistant plants. Crop yield was notably influenced by A. myosuroides in winter wheat. The overall results of this dissertation showed the great impact of agricultural measures on herbicide resistance in A. myosuroides and A. spica-venti and demonstrated opportunities for prevention and management. The developed resistance quick test provides an accelerated detection of herbicide resistance and therefore the chance to initiate resistance management strategies much earlier.
Studies on the efficacy, composition and mode of action of an ethoxylated soybean oil adjuvant for herbicides
(2012) Heini, Julia; Gerhards, Roland
The potential of an ethoxylated soybean oil adjuvant ? Agnique® SBO 10 ? to increase the efficacy of different herbicides was investigated in the present thesis. Furthermore, Agnique® SBO 10 was fractioned by preparative High-Performance Liquid Chromatography (prep. HPLC) to elucidate the composition of the ethoxylated soybean oil (ESBO). In addition, experiments with fluorescein-labelled Agnique® SBO 10 were conducted to evaluate the fate of modified seed oil adjuvants on the leaf surface. The efficacy of many herbicides can be increased by adding adjuvants to the spray solution. Adjuvants, in particular surfactants, are able to increase the foliar uptake of active ingredients for example, by enhancing the retention of spray droplets on cuticles, penetration and absorption into leaf tissue. Agnique® SBO 10 belongs to a group of environmental friendly surfactant containing ten ethylene oxide units. Modified seed or vegetable oils are biodegradable and are proposed to be as effective as petroleum oils. These facts make them very interesting for the usage as adjuvants for agrochemicals. To evaluate the potency of Agnique® SBO 10 dose-response studies were accomplished. Results showed that sulfosulfuron, topramezone, and foramsulfuron & iodosulfuron did not control velvetleaf (Abutilon theophrasti Medik.) sufficiently when they were applied without adjuvant. Agnique® SBO 10 acted 2-fold better compared to the recommended adjuvants. Thus, Agnique® SBO 10 could present an alternative adjuvant for a widespread use. These results show, that a certain adjuvant has the potential to increase the efficacy of a herbicide to its maximum. However, for the user it is not easy to choose a proper adjuvant of the broad range of available products. Thus, integrating additives into pesticide formulations is desirable. Due to the fact, that Agnique® SBO 10 is a huge and complex product it cannot be included into a formulation. For this reason, an experiment was accomplished dividing Agnique® SBO 10 into four fractions by using preparative HPLC. These four fractions were isolated of Agnique® SBO 10 and tested in combination with commercially formulated herbicides (foramsulfuron & iodosulfuron and bromoxynil octanoate) and a technical grade bromoxynil product. The aim was to find a fraction with a higher potential compared to Agnique® SBO 10 to be used as low-molecular adjuvant. The herbicide-fraction mixtures were applied as droplets with a pipette on velvetleaf leaves. Dry weight and leaf area measurements of test plants demonstrated that the efficacy of foramsulfuron & iodosulfuron and the technical bromoxynil was increased with decreasing polarity of isolated fractions of Agnique® SBO 10, whereas the efficiency of bromoxynil octanoate was tendentially enhanced adding more polar fractions to the herbicide solution. Again, it was demonstrated that the herbicide?s efficacy is strongly dependent of the adjuvant/fractions. Though a lot of research was conducted to confirm the positive effect of adjuvants on herbicides, their mode of action is still not completely clear. Because modified vegetable oils are complex compounds, a radioactive labelling is not easy. Therefore, in this study Agnique® SBO 10 was labelled with fluorescein to investigate, whether Agnique® SBO 10 remains on the leaf surface, accumulates in the cuticle or even penetrates into the underlying plant tissue. Fluorescein-labelled Agnique® SBO 10 (AF) was applied to one leaf of the test species velvetleaf, wild mustard and sugar beet. At different time intervals, treated leaves were harvested and rinsed with different washing solutions (deionised water, methanol/water and chloroform). The washed leaves and the respective washing solutions were processed separately and analyzed with HPLC coupled with an UV detector. Results lead to the assumption that AF might have been passed through the cuticle. However, AF is not expected to be very mobile because it is lipophilic and electrically neutral. If there was a penetration through the cuticle, an enzymatic metabolisation of Agnique® SBO 10 into fatty acids and ethoxylated glycerol is likely to occur. With this thesis the herbicide-enhancing effect of Agnique® SBO 10 was confirmed. Furthermore, a new approach for the design of optimized adjuvants for precise herbicide-adjuvant mixtures was presented. Though a lot of research has to be conducted to elucidate the mode of action of adjuvants, this study gives an approach to investigate the behaviour of foliar applied adjuvants.