April 2, 2025 • 31 mins
This week Alyssa and Sarah chat with Caleb Wepprecht and Aaron Hager with University of Illinois about using fertilizers as carriers for herbicide applications.
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Episode Transcript
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Alyssa Essman (00:00):
Sarah, welcome back to the war against weeds
(00:07):
podcast. This is Alyssa Essman,Weed Science extension
specialist at Ohio State, andtoday my co host is Sarah
Lancaster, coming to us from KState. How's it going Sarah?
Sarah Lancaster (00:17):
It's fantastic Alyssa, we haven't blown away
this spring yet, so we're stilldoing good.
Alyssa Essman (00:23):
That's all we can hope for as of today, the first
day of spring. So Happy firstday of spring. And as we kind of
gear up for spring and plantingand the weed management
considerations that come withthat, we're talking about a
pretty timely topic today, andthat's, you know, the use of
fertilizers as herbicidecarriers. And so we've got two
folks here who can provide ussome pretty great information
(00:45):
and background as we workthrough this topic. And so we
have Aaron Hager from Universityof Illinois and Caleb Wepprecht,
also from that program. SoCaleb, you want to start us off
and tell us a little bit aboutyour background and what you do?
Awesome. It sounds like you're the perfect
Caleb Wepprecht (01:00):
Yes. Thank you, both you for inviting me on
here. I hope all of ourlisteners are gearing up for
another spring, because, asalways, it's sneaking right up
on us. Once again, as Alyssasaid, my name is Caleb
Wepprecht. I am entering mythird growing season as a field
research specialist with DrAaron Hager here at the
University of Illinois.Previously, I was a certified
crop advisor for an independentretail fertilizer location about
(01:24):
an hour and 20 minutes or sonorth of Champaign. I worked
there for five years, beinginvolved in the mixing and
blending of various fertilizersand pesticides. Found myself at
the blenders and mixed bowlquite a bit. So that's why I was
asked to be with you here today.Before that, I had received my
bachelor's and master's degreesfrom Illinois State University
in Bloomington, normal. Sothat's kind of a little bit of
(01:46):
background about
host to tell us all about, uh,fertilizers as carriers, and
then Aaron, you're, you're arepeat guest here, but you want
to tell us and give the folkssome reminders about what you
Aaron Hager (01:59):
Yeah a lot of people ask me that, what is what
do.
exactly do you do these days? Sono, my name is Aaron Hager. I'm
the extension Weed Scientisthere at the University of
Illinois, and starting, I think,year number 32 here. So been a
very, very interesting career,seen a lot of change over the
(02:19):
time, and we'll talk a littlebit about as we get into the
conversation. Today. You knowhow we've actually seen the use
of either fluid fertilizers ascarriers or fluid fertilizers as
spray additives? Let's change alittle bit over time. So looking
forward to the conversation.
Alyssa Essman (02:37):
Awesome So thank you both for joining us, and
we'll, start at the top here. Socan you describe, you know, some
of the types of fertilizers thatare used as carriers in this
way?
Caleb Wepprecht (02:49):
Well, the good news is, I don't have to talk
about clay based Atrazine with1034 Oh, that was something that
had happened years and years agowhen dry starter came off of
planters. You know, before mytime, but I certainly heard all
the nightmares. But since thattime, we've kind of focused on
UAN or urea ammonium nitrate,28% or 32% we're going to talk a
(03:13):
little bit about ammoniumthiosulfate, as we gain more
acres, getting sulfur appliedearly on so but I would say
those are the main ones. When wetalk about pre herbicide
applications, they're 28% or 32%with a little bit of ammonium
thiol in there as well.
Aaron Hager (03:29):
They're historically now it's not very
common practice, buthistorically there also has been
impregnation on dry fertilizers.Now, again, that's a very, very
less frequent practice relativeto, you know, using the fluid
based fertilizer, but in someapplications, that was somewhat,
you know, common, maybe I don'tknow, 25-30 years ago, relative
(03:51):
to how it is
Alyssa Essman (03:52):
So in terms of commonality in those practices
that are the most common, what?What do you see as being the
most common products and type ofapplication. Well,
Caleb Wepprecht (04:05):
Well again, I mean, it's, it's pretty common
to see high, high volume of UANbeing used pre the thing you got
to watch with, you know, ifyou're adding ammonium
thiosulfate, is compatibility interms of, really your total
volume of your tank. So I alwaysuse the 20% rule personally,
which just means that you don'twant your thiosulfate to be 20%
(04:28):
or higher of your total tankvolume. But I've, you know,
recently heard 10% and I've evenhad a few people tell me five,
just because you can run intoissues with mattressing based
products and our corn pre mixes.So that's probably one of the
main, main topics of this. I hadtwo examples about that,
actually, as I'm flippingthrough here, basically a little
(04:51):
bit of background on the.Thiosulfate is it's a 12 oh 26
grade, and it weighs just over11 pounds per gallon. So in
every gallon of ATS, you aregetting 1.3 pounds of nitrogen
and 2.8 pounds of sulfur. So youtypically see rates between two
and five gallons per acre. ButI've seen as much as seven used.
I've used seven personally on myown, but mainly see ATS get
(05:15):
added to our pre corn tank,mixes with UAN and whatever pre
mix you you so choose. You'reprobably not going to see it
very much as a starterfertilizer due to the potential
for seedling injury, but I haveseen it used in a two by two
situation at a lower end of therate spectrum. Now, when you add
it to your tank mix, and Icannot emphasize this enough,
(05:38):
make sure it's added last. Idon't care if there's UAN water,
your herbicide, all three ofthose. Potentially, if you're
trying to get to a specificrate, you're going to want to
add your ATS very, very last.And you know, like I said
previously, you want to watchyour volume. Again, I always use
the 20% rule, but last year too,I've heard 10% and even some say
(06:02):
5% so again, what I mean by thatis you can get in real trouble
if your ATS volume gets over 10%your tank mix. So let's say
you're spraying 50 gallons of28% I would probably advise you
not to put more than fivegallons of ATS in that load. So
it's not a given that you'llhave issues, but it's certainly
a strong possibility. It has thepotential to cause product
(06:25):
layering, where, when thesprayer gets in the field, pulls
in the field and takes off,making it's a B line, one of
those products is probably goingto settle to the bottom of the
tank, so there's no even tankmixture at that point, which
will cause issues of all kinds,obviously. So before someone
counters that and says, Well,stir your tank, I would strongly
(06:49):
advise against that as well.Typically, you stir your tanks
during post spray season, not somuch during pre emerge season. A
couple of years ago, forwhatever reason, and it was
early in the morning, but we hada truck driver that, again, for
whatever reason, decided to stirhis tanker that morning, and it
(07:09):
had UAN was in there, of course,with ATS a 10% volume. I had to
go back and look at that tankmix, and then Atrazine pre mix.
And when he got to the field, wehad some of the healthiest
looking cottage cheese you couldimagine. So I would strongly
advise against stirring thetank. I don't have any
literature to support thatscenario. I don't know if any
(07:32):
university has ever doneresearch on that, but I can tell
you from my own experience, Iwould not stir the tank with ATS
in it. So and the other thing Iwanted to point out was we had a
situation. So Bill Johnson atPurdue did a similar study to
this in 2019 I believe it waslooking at thiazol in your burn
down tank mix for pre corn. Sowe had a customer that was strip
(07:56):
till non GMO corn burned down.And again, it was UAN ATS and a
pre mix with burned downactivity with a quarter round of
Power Max as well. And he hadcome into the chemical shed,
like seven or eight days afterwe sprayed it, and said
everything was smoked except thedowny brome in one field that
was known to have downy bromepressure. Downey Brome can be
(08:19):
tough to kill anyway. But Idrive to the field, and you can
tell the UAM burned. It realbad. But, you know, you look at
the crown of that plant, andthose plants, they they were
green as could be. Then the realproblem was, you know, by the
time you figure that out, that,you know, your glyphosate was
probably, you know, messed withby your ATS, that non GMO corn
(08:43):
was emerged, so now we justbought 80 acres of accident Q,
so you really have to be carefulon on your volume of ATS with
that so and that one again, BillJohnson did a study on that,
looking at wheat termination inthe spring, and Pretty much
reported everything that I seenthat day.
Alyssa Essman (09:03):
Yeah, really good thoughts. There. You've brought
up a couple things that kind oflead us into where we're going
next year. So all of us look atherbicide labels a lot, and this
is one of the things thatsometimes we see on a herbicide
label, one way or the other,right? And it's very dependent
on what we're looking at. So canyou walk us through some of the
pros and cons, or the risks andbenefits that come with
(09:27):
fertilizer as a carrier versuswater?
Caleb Wepprecht (09:31):
Well, I think timing wise, probably you know,
if we're talking pre corn, Inever you know did anything
fertilizer, carrier on a prebean situation, but I did, I did
try thiazol once with two pintsof boundary and six ounces of a
generic self venture zone once.And you know, it was 15 gallons
(09:54):
per acre total. So it was sevengallons of ATS and eight gallons
of water. And believe it or not,didn't. Into any issues. There
was no yield bump across thatgrowers fields. But it's not
something I would recommenddoing. I didn't feel that
comfortable doing it, but wedid, because he wanted to try
it. But in terms of pre corn,it's really about timing. I
mean, you look at your options,you could do fall, applied
(10:16):
ammonia, you know, springapplied ammonia. If you can, you
know, have the time to get inthe field to do that this, this
is one of those springs that weactually probably did have time
to do that, or still, stillcould. But it's really about
timing, I think, you know, andin a burn down situation, it's
probably going to help yourherbicide activity on eMERGE
weeds.
Sarah Lancaster (10:36):
So, Caleb, I'm going to throw a little bit of a
curveball, right? So I'm at KState, where the wheat state,
how much wheat and feed do youguys do? I know you have limited
wheat acres compared to what wehave here, but you know, how
much wheat and feed type ofthings do you have for top
dressing wheat? And you know, doyou see, how many like parallels
(10:57):
or differences do you seebetween that scenario and a burn
down scenario. Does that makesense? Yeah,
Caleb Wepprecht (11:03):
Yeah I think I know your estimates are, so I'll
be honest my my herbicideactivity on wheat experience is
very limited. That was actually,I told Dr Hager yesterday. He
probably knows more about thatthan I do, because we had
sprayed, you know, we hadsprayed plenty of nitrogen on
wheat, but we never really raninto a situation where we had
to, you know, put any two, 4din, or anything that it's spring
(11:25):
of 2019, of course, everybodyremembers we had planned to do
that. And then, of course, itgot wet. And then by the time we
actually could, the wheat was,was way too tall to do. So I
actually don't have a lot ofexperience with herbicide, you
know, on post emerge wheat, whenit comes to fertilize security.
But I know Dr Hager does
Aaron Hager (11:44):
actually, Sarah, when, when I first started here
at Illinois, I think we hadsomewhere around a million acres
of winter wheat here in thestate. Now we're not anywhere
near that, and still, the vastmajority of the wheat grown in
Illinois is grown in thesouthern, probably third of the
state. Well, that also happensto be an area of the state where
(12:04):
wild garlic is very common, andso fairly common practice in
those geographic areas where thethreshold for garlic is
essentially zero, given thepotential for Dockage at the
elevator when they when folksare top dressing their wheat in
the spring of the year, usually,you know, UAN solution, they'll
use either harmony or harmonyextra. And with that UAN to try
(12:27):
to control that wild garlic. Noweither, they probably use both
about equally. But a couple ofthings to think about. You know,
if you look at the labels of theproducts, they will tell you
that if the volume of UAN isless than 50% of the total
solution, you probably shouldadd additional surfactant to it.
However, if it's over 50% thenthe labels will caution you that
(12:51):
you might actually see increasedinjury to the wheat if you do
add the surfactant. So it's notjust about adding it. It really
you need to consider what isgoing to be the the volume of
the UAN in terms of the totalsolution that you're going to be
applying to the wheat crop, andthen whether or not, if you are
using something like a harmony,Harmony extra, or any other, any
(13:12):
other herbicide, for thatmatter, what the label would
suggest that you use for anyadditional spray, additive or
caution against using,
Sarah Lancaster (13:19):
yeah, I think that's Interesting. A lot of
times when you're lookingthrough those labels, sometimes
it will say you can use UAN as acarrier full stop. Sometimes it
says you can use UAN up to acertain percentage of the spray
volume. And then you have allthese caveats, like you said
about mis and crop injury versusweed control and all the things
(13:41):
we talk about with adjuvants. Soyeah, yeah,
Aaron Hager (13:44):
and you probably the folks in Kansas use a wider
variety of herbicides in theirspring wheat. And what we do
here, again, vast majority of itwould be treated with something
like a pipe and sulfur oncontaining herbicide, much less
so with everything else. So
Alyssa Essman (14:00):
what are you we've all touched on, kind of
this injury component. What aresome specific situations where
using fertilizer as a carriercan cause issues? I know Caleb,
you got the cottage cheesestory. Is there any other
interesting stories orsituations you've run into where
you've had some issues withthis?
Caleb Wepprecht (14:21):
I don't, I don't think so, as long as you
you just watch the the ratio ofthe ATS with your total tank
volume. I never really had anyissues. I mean, I've seen post,
post corn, side dress foliarwith UAN, which you can't miss
that. I mean, if you're drivingin the countryside, you will
(14:42):
certainly tell that. That's whathappened there. But other than
that, there really wasn'tanything, as far as burn goes,
that I would be too worriedabout. I mean, the UAN by
itself, with our modern day premixes and that I really haven't
heard of any true design.Masters happening in the
countryside. It's alwaysbasically been when you throw
(15:04):
thiasel into that mixture. Andthe thing about thiasol is it's
it's sometimes can beinconsistent. Sometimes this
tank mix worked last year andthen this year it doesn't. Or
sometimes it worked yesterdayand today it didn't. It's just
kind of one of those weirdthings. It's just something that
can be a valuable tool to, youknow, feed your crop, but you
really got to be careful withit. So, and that's just one of
those things. I think experienceprobably is going to play a big
(15:27):
role.
Aaron Hager (15:28):
And Alyssa, you know, there's very few that I
can think of, off the top of myhead, very few labels of foliar
applied herbicides that wouldallow you to use the fertilizer
as a carrier. And again, becauseof those concerns about
significant crop injury, theremay have been one or two, but,
you know, historically, it'sjust a practice that really
(15:49):
hasn't been done now, you know,years and years ago, and I'm
talking probably here back, youknow, in the 1980s for example,
when we had a much narrower, Iguess, number of products, you
know, I think years ago, when Iwas an intern with BASF, we had
bare and, you know, back wayback when, if, if velvetleaf was
(16:10):
your target species in thefield, then the label would say,
you know, add 28% to that. Andit may be two quarts. It may be
four quarts based on the size ofthe velvetleaf. Whereas if you
had something, maybe your targetspecies was common lambs
quarters, then it would say,Well, if you run 28% we know
(16:31):
you're not going to control us.We would, you know, the
recommendation would be toswitch over to crop oil
concentrate. What really seemedto usher in the era of using
ammonium sulfate in our fullyapplied products, is when the
Roundup Ready technology cameinto the marketplace, and
virtually every application, youknow, since that time has
probably included some kind ofan AMS fertilizer in there with
(16:54):
it. Now it does a couple ofother you know, a couple of good
things. Number one, I think themost important thing it does
probably it really helpsprecipitate out the diving
cations from the water solution.And so if you had a scenario
where you had a lot of calciumin your water supply, and that
calcium complexes with thenegative charge on the
glyphosate molecule, calciumglyphosate is not absorbed very
(17:17):
well. And so that's a reallybenefit of having that ammonium
sulfate, you know, lower carriervolumes also really helped
roundup work quite effectively.And I think that was fairly
common practice, you know, ofcourse, in the great plain stage
for years, just a low volume totry to reduce that antagonism of
divalent cations withglyphosate. So, and there could
be, you know, there has beensome evidence that the ammonium
(17:37):
part of it does, you know, maybeperhaps aid in the Trans
membrane movement of glyphosateinto a cell. But, you know, I
guess the way I've alwaysthought about it, you probably
get the most benefit of AMS inthat, in that conditioning of
the wall.
Sarah Lancaster (17:52):
So that leads me to a question I'd be curious
to pick the three of you all'sbrains on this one I got in my
inbox A while back, guy says,I'm tired of hauling bags of
AMS. I'm using ATS in my burndown. Why can't I just use ATS
to condition my water instead ofAMS?
Caleb Wepprecht (18:14):
I would be awfully concerned about burn on
that I wouldn't go with ATS.There is liquid AMS, which I
would probably be morecomfortable using. I know there
are a lot of facilities andlocations that do that probably
reduce your risk of burn. Imean, I'd have to think that,
you know, ATS is probably goingto be similar to what a UA
(18:34):
interior would look like. AMS isa little bit safer in that
regard. And the other thing too,is adding to Dr hagers, point
about glyphosate is, you know,the antagonistic minerals in our
hard water in the Midwest, theyhave the potential to reduce
efficacy of a lot of herbicidesthat we're using in the
countryside these days. I mean,it's, you know, group ones,
group twos, HPPD inhibitors,even even glucosinate. So a lot
(18:59):
of you know, a lot of chemistrythat would be in the countryside
could be affected by that so,but yeah, as far as ATS, instead
of AMS, I really wouldn't adviseto do that. I would go with
liquid AMS if he wants and ifthat's what he's after. But a
little side note on liquid AMS,it's usually 34% AMS. It's a
(19:21):
seven, oh, grade. And I believe,I believe, it contains four
pounds of AMS per gallon. So ifyou ever run into a situation
where you're halfway through aload and your liquid tank runs
dry, you run out of bags and yougot to switch. You know, that's
quick math for you. Becausedon't ask me how I know that
that does happen.
Aaron Hager (19:42):
You want. One thing I've always tried to remind
folks down through time is that,you know your major investment
is in the herbicide right? Yourless than major investment is
going to be with the sprayadditives. Now, if you pick the
right spray additive, you'regoing to be okay. You. Pick the
wrong one, and all of a suddenthat big investment that you
(20:02):
just made in the herbicide isgoing to return a whole lot less
on that investment.
Sarah Lancaster (20:07):
Yeah, sometimes there's no, there's no easy
button, right?
Aaron Hager (20:15):
And you know, I guess it's, it's been my
experience down through theyears that most of the
registrants when they writelabels, you know, they've done
the work. They know which arethe best additives to include
and which ones really should notbe included. You know, all of
our all of our field programs. Iknow ours is, and I'm sure Sarah
(20:36):
and the list is yours as well.You know, these are some of the
treatments that we do look at,as we partner with our industry
colleagues to evaluate whatmight be either the, you know,
the best spray additive or theworst spray additive, or the
best carrier volume, orsomething that would be less
than best. So there's been a lotof work that goes into what the
(20:56):
registrants put on labels interms of recommendations for
volume, for spray additives,for, you know, do this, but
don't do that kinds of things.And that's always the best place
to begin. You know, your yourinvestigation is read the label,
Caleb Wepprecht (21:10):
and if you really wanted to, you know, get
down to cost, which is always atalk talking point. But I think
two and a half to three poundsof AMS would be between three
and $4 an acre, and ATS is goingto be ATS will be more than
that. So I think that that wouldbe a much, much safer, more cost
effective route, no doubt aboutit.
Aaron Hager (21:33):
Yeah, one thing we haven't really touched on yet
that I think is pretty importantis that, you know, most sections
of the labels, when they talkabout different either types of
additives or tank mixes orcarriers or whatever may be, you
know, they would stronglyencourage you before you do the
500 gallon mix load, you know,do take a little time and do
(21:54):
this little thing called a jartest. And it been a while since
I read that part of some labels,but for some odd reason, I was
reading it the other day, maybeI was trying to get ready for
our discussion here today. Idon't remember what, but looking
at a label and how they reallywere very specific and very
clear on how to actually dothese jar tests. It's not just
(22:17):
you slop in a little bit ofeverything that you're going to
throw in the tank and see whathappens or what doesn't happen,
but very, very specific detailson what volume of an
emulsifiable concentrate itshould be, what volume of a SC
formulation should be includedin that jar test. So it's not
something that you have to kindof guess about. It's usually
(22:38):
very well spelled out on labelson how to do this and again, as
you know, Caleb's earlierreference to a tank load of
cottage cheese, you know, couldresult in saving some pretty
substantial dollars if you knewahead of time that this is not
going to be a mix, it's going tonot going to flow very well out
of the nozzles.
Sarah Lancaster (22:55):
I have an agent here in Kansas who likes to say
a jar test is way easier toclean up than a tank test. Yes,
yeah,
Aaron Hager (23:03):
there's a very wise person
Sarah Lancaster (23:06):
from experience a time or two. Aaron, your label
comment brings up another pointthat I and Caleb touched on this
earlier, just mixing order, Ithink especially when we're
thinking about using some ofthese kind of alternative
fertilizer carriers that can be,that can be a thing, right? Can
you guys think of any otherCaleb you had that one example
(23:28):
earlier of putting ATS in last?Can you think of any other like
examples or scenarios?
Caleb Wepprecht (23:35):
Well, a lot of the a lot of the systems and
chemical sheds nowadays are allautomated, so you can pre
program those, which makes itextremely handy. I mean, that
takes some of the stress away inthe spring, which is, you know,
that's nothing, but a chemicalshed is, is one big stress area.
But, yeah, as far as mixingorder goes, a lot of them are
(23:57):
pre programmed. And, you know,it'll give you a certain amount
of gallons that you can preprogram ahead of time to a lot
for your mix bowl. So if you're,you know, carriers pumping
faster than what you're mixingin the mix bowl, it'll stop, you
know, to allow that mix bowl,you know, that that product to
go in. So, yeah, mix order, itshouldn't be too big. Video,
(24:18):
now, of course, if growers arespraying their own. I would
recommend having a, you know,printed out sheet on the wall by
where they mix, or somethingthat goes over mix order, and
even have the products they'reusing listed on that sheet so
they can't, you know, there'sno, you know, mishap or
misinterpretation, but yeah,thiis always went in last, or it
(24:39):
should go in last, but yeah. Imean, a lot of those, lot of
those systems are automated andpre programmed, which makes it
pretty nice. Never used to bethat way. So,
Alyssa Essman (24:48):
yeah. So some of these comments, you know, Aaron
talks about, we're making aherbicide application. We want
that to be our priority. And itmade me think about the number
of options now, of things.Things that can be thrown in a
tank mix. I'm curious if youhave any thoughts on any of
those special products thatwould have an interaction of
some sort, one way or another,with with fertilizer as a
(25:11):
carrier versus water
Caleb Wepprecht (25:13):
well, and that's, you know, any product
that goes into a tank. You know,the more products you have, the
more chance there is thatsomething could potentially go
wrong. But I don't think that,as far as the fertilizer
interaction, I don't know ifthat'll be so much an issue as
what other herbicide you knowyou might have in there, or
other product you might have inthere. So I guess when it comes
(25:35):
down to that, again, you know,jar test could be your best
friend. But also, before youeven look into that, make sure
that whatever this product isthat you want to explore with
your operation is actually worthexploring. Make sure you
actually understand what what isin that job would be, my advice
there.
Aaron Hager (25:52):
Yeah, there's examples, of course. And Sarah,
I think you wrote about this inone of your last newsletter
articles. You know, if you arerunning something like a UAN
solution, esters tend to mixbetter in a UAN solution than
does a salt formulation. So andagain, you know, you may know
that you may see that on thelabel, but if that label is
(26:14):
recommending that you do thatjar test first, highly advisable
to do that, because the lastplace that you want to discover
a mishap is something thatdoesn't mix well, is when you
get in the field and you flipthe switch and you nothing comes
out of the nozzles.
Caleb Wepprecht (26:28):
And even, I mean, we always kept just a
couple jars that, you know, inthe office of the chemical shed.
You know, you walk by them, youknow, 100 times each day thing.
And I don't know, whoever usethose things. And we use one one
time in five years. I'm reallyglad we did just put it that
way, that box, nobody touch it.
Aaron Hager (26:50):
Take your hands off my jars.
Alyssa Essman (26:55):
I think we've covered a lot of these, you
know, tank, mix, compatibilityand other things that come up.
Are there any other applicationsor different considerations that
that we're kind of missing inthis discussion here?
Aaron Hager (27:07):
I guess the only other, the only other thing I
thought about, you know, wetalked a lot about UA hand and
ammonium thiosulfate, but youknow, some suspension type
fertilizers, you know, we canrun into issues with those kinds
of fertilizer solutions, ifthey're using, like a clay base
for the suspension agents. And,you know, something like
paraquat comes into mind. Youknow, paraquat is strongly
(27:30):
adsorbed to things like clays orother soil colloids. So that
could be a consideration also,but, but again, you know, those
kind of things would be spelledout on, you know, for this
example would be spelled outvery clearly on the garbox, on
Sarah Lancaster (27:43):
label. One thing that I had come across my
desk in the last couple of weeksalong this topic was nozzle
selection for these types ofapplications, you know, so right
streamers for for a fertilizerapplication, obviously is not
going to work if our primarygoal is herbicide application.
So, I don't know. Maybe Caleb,you want to talk about some of
(28:05):
your experiences aroundapplication equipment for some
of these applications,
Caleb Wepprecht (28:11):
unless, unless you have a true, complete
disaster. I don't think youknow, nozzle plugging would be a
problem. You know, there's somuch pressure, and these, these
flood nozzles, are hard to plug.I mean, I've never seen that
actually happen. I have seen,and this is not, this has
nothing to do with withfertilizer, by any means, but I
(28:33):
have seen the, you know, likethe little first rate packets
that they say you can throw intothe mix bowl, and they'll
dissolve. They don't alwaysdissolve. And they can plug the
sprayer screen roughly, quick,and that's not a very pleasant
phone call from the operatorthere. So, and it's really not
good when you know that you haveabout three other trucks sitting
at the field waiting to load asprayer with that same thing. So
(28:55):
that that's one thing I wouldadvise, but that's got nothing
to do with fertilizers. Carrier.That was just a post soybean
application so, but, yeah, Iwouldn't. I would open those
little packets,
Aaron Hager (29:06):
I mean. And the only other thing I guess I'd
add, Sarah, you know, if you'remaking this application of a,
let's just say a soil residualherbicide under, you know,
ground has already been tilled,probably not going to be a huge
issue. But if this is also goingto be part of your burn down,
and you are using something likea UAN as a carrier, you know its
(29:27):
density is more than out ofwater, so that can affect your
your flow rate. Maybe not somuch with today's modern
equipment, but you know,consider the coverage also. The
last thing that you want to dowould be compromise your
coverage. If there is aherbicide in that UAN carrier
that you need to control anyexisting vegetation in that
field.
Alyssa Essman (29:47):
I think that's kind of what I had for today's
topic. Sarah, did you have anyfinal burning questions or or
Aaron or Caleb? Any any lastthoughts? Yeah,
Aaron Hager (29:58):
I guess the only, the only thing, I guess. Of the
partying comment I would make,you know is, we're here at the
outset of another growingseason. You know, just wish
everybody all the best and justbe safe. You know, take your
time, rest as you need to. It's,you know, it's so important to
be able to, you know, do yourjob, to go home to your family
at the end of the day. Also,
Alyssa Essman (30:18):
I love that reminder. Let's end on that. So
thank you so much Aaron andKayla for joining us today. Do
you? Do you have any labwebsites or or social media
accounts that folks can maybefollow along and get more
information from
Caleb Wepprecht (30:33):
you? We actually, it's funny as that.
We're kind of renovating our webpage right now. We're kind of
bringing it up to date, up tospeed, so it will be, it will be
public knowledge once it's done.And it actually is now, but
we're working on getting it donenow where we'll have trials and
data posted and that sort ofthing. So that'll be, hopefully
available later this spring.
Aaron Hager (30:53):
I have a Twitter account. It's UI Weed Science. I
actually started that in 2017which happened to coincide with
the beginning of the Dicamba useof soybean, and really wish I
hadn't started it that year, butI still haven't. So
Alyssa Essman (31:06):
all right, so find more information from Aaron
and Caleb there. Thank you allfor listening along with us
today, and we'll We hope you'lltune in next week to the War
Against Weeds podcast.
You thanks for tuning in. Just areminder, you can find this and
(31:26):
other podcasts and resources onthe crop protection network.
This network has a host ofinformation from extension
programs across the US about allthings pest management. We hope
to catch you next week on thewar against weeds. Podcast.
Sarah, welcome back to the war against weeds
(00:07):
podcast. This is Alyssa Essman,Weed Science extension
specialist at Ohio State, andtoday my co host is Sarah
Lancaster, coming to us from KState. How's it going Sarah?
Sarah Lancaster (00:17):
It's fantastic Alyssa, we haven't blown away
this spring yet, so we're stilldoing good.
Alyssa Essman (00:23):
That's all we can hope for as of today, the first
day of spring. So Happy firstday of spring. And as we kind of
gear up for spring and plantingand the weed management
considerations that come withthat, we're talking about a
pretty timely topic today, andthat's, you know, the use of
fertilizers as herbicidecarriers. And so we've got two
folks here who can provide ussome pretty great information
(00:45):
and background as we workthrough this topic. And so we
have Aaron Hager from Universityof Illinois and Caleb Wepprecht,
also from that program. SoCaleb, you want to start us off
and tell us a little bit aboutyour background and what you do?
Awesome. It sounds like you're the perfect
Caleb Wepprecht (01:00):
Yes. Thank you, both you for inviting me on
here. I hope all of ourlisteners are gearing up for
another spring, because, asalways, it's sneaking right up
on us. Once again, as Alyssasaid, my name is Caleb
Wepprecht. I am entering mythird growing season as a field
research specialist with DrAaron Hager here at the
University of Illinois.Previously, I was a certified
crop advisor for an independentretail fertilizer location about
(01:24):
an hour and 20 minutes or sonorth of Champaign. I worked
there for five years, beinginvolved in the mixing and
blending of various fertilizersand pesticides. Found myself at
the blenders and mixed bowlquite a bit. So that's why I was
asked to be with you here today.Before that, I had received my
bachelor's and master's degreesfrom Illinois State University
in Bloomington, normal. Sothat's kind of a little bit of
(01:46):
background about
host to tell us all about, uh,fertilizers as carriers, and
then Aaron, you're, you're arepeat guest here, but you want
to tell us and give the folkssome reminders about what you
Aaron Hager (01:59):
Yeah a lot of people ask me that, what is what
do.
exactly do you do these days? Sono, my name is Aaron Hager. I'm
the extension Weed Scientisthere at the University of
Illinois, and starting, I think,year number 32 here. So been a
very, very interesting career,seen a lot of change over the
(02:19):
time, and we'll talk a littlebit about as we get into the
conversation. Today. You knowhow we've actually seen the use
of either fluid fertilizers ascarriers or fluid fertilizers as
spray additives? Let's change alittle bit over time. So looking
forward to the conversation.
Alyssa Essman (02:37):
Awesome So thank you both for joining us, and
we'll, start at the top here. Socan you describe, you know, some
of the types of fertilizers thatare used as carriers in this
way?
Caleb Wepprecht (02:49):
Well, the good news is, I don't have to talk
about clay based Atrazine with1034 Oh, that was something that
had happened years and years agowhen dry starter came off of
planters. You know, before mytime, but I certainly heard all
the nightmares. But since thattime, we've kind of focused on
UAN or urea ammonium nitrate,28% or 32% we're going to talk a
(03:13):
little bit about ammoniumthiosulfate, as we gain more
acres, getting sulfur appliedearly on so but I would say
those are the main ones. When wetalk about pre herbicide
applications, they're 28% or 32%with a little bit of ammonium
thiol in there as well.
Aaron Hager (03:29):
They're historically now it's not very
common practice, buthistorically there also has been
impregnation on dry fertilizers.Now, again, that's a very, very
less frequent practice relativeto, you know, using the fluid
based fertilizer, but in someapplications, that was somewhat,
you know, common, maybe I don'tknow, 25-30 years ago, relative
(03:51):
to how it is
Alyssa Essman (03:52):
So in terms of commonality in those practices
that are the most common, what?What do you see as being the
most common products and type ofapplication. Well,
Caleb Wepprecht (04:05):
Well again, I mean, it's, it's pretty common
to see high, high volume of UANbeing used pre the thing you got
to watch with, you know, ifyou're adding ammonium
thiosulfate, is compatibility interms of, really your total
volume of your tank. So I alwaysuse the 20% rule personally,
which just means that you don'twant your thiosulfate to be 20%
(04:28):
or higher of your total tankvolume. But I've, you know,
recently heard 10% and I've evenhad a few people tell me five,
just because you can run intoissues with mattressing based
products and our corn pre mixes.So that's probably one of the
main, main topics of this. I hadtwo examples about that,
actually, as I'm flippingthrough here, basically a little
(04:51):
bit of background on the.Thiosulfate is it's a 12 oh 26
grade, and it weighs just over11 pounds per gallon. So in
every gallon of ATS, you aregetting 1.3 pounds of nitrogen
and 2.8 pounds of sulfur. So youtypically see rates between two
and five gallons per acre. ButI've seen as much as seven used.
I've used seven personally on myown, but mainly see ATS get
(05:15):
added to our pre corn tank,mixes with UAN and whatever pre
mix you you so choose. You'reprobably not going to see it
very much as a starterfertilizer due to the potential
for seedling injury, but I haveseen it used in a two by two
situation at a lower end of therate spectrum. Now, when you add
it to your tank mix, and Icannot emphasize this enough,
(05:38):
make sure it's added last. Idon't care if there's UAN water,
your herbicide, all three ofthose. Potentially, if you're
trying to get to a specificrate, you're going to want to
add your ATS very, very last.And you know, like I said
previously, you want to watchyour volume. Again, I always use
the 20% rule, but last year too,I've heard 10% and even some say
(06:02):
5% so again, what I mean by thatis you can get in real trouble
if your ATS volume gets over 10%your tank mix. So let's say
you're spraying 50 gallons of28% I would probably advise you
not to put more than fivegallons of ATS in that load. So
it's not a given that you'llhave issues, but it's certainly
a strong possibility. It has thepotential to cause product
(06:25):
layering, where, when thesprayer gets in the field, pulls
in the field and takes off,making it's a B line, one of
those products is probably goingto settle to the bottom of the
tank, so there's no even tankmixture at that point, which
will cause issues of all kinds,obviously. So before someone
counters that and says, Well,stir your tank, I would strongly
(06:49):
advise against that as well.Typically, you stir your tanks
during post spray season, not somuch during pre emerge season. A
couple of years ago, forwhatever reason, and it was
early in the morning, but we hada truck driver that, again, for
whatever reason, decided to stirhis tanker that morning, and it
(07:09):
had UAN was in there, of course,with ATS a 10% volume. I had to
go back and look at that tankmix, and then Atrazine pre mix.
And when he got to the field, wehad some of the healthiest
looking cottage cheese you couldimagine. So I would strongly
advise against stirring thetank. I don't have any
literature to support thatscenario. I don't know if any
(07:32):
university has ever doneresearch on that, but I can tell
you from my own experience, Iwould not stir the tank with ATS
in it. So and the other thing Iwanted to point out was we had a
situation. So Bill Johnson atPurdue did a similar study to
this in 2019 I believe it waslooking at thiazol in your burn
down tank mix for pre corn. Sowe had a customer that was strip
(07:56):
till non GMO corn burned down.And again, it was UAN ATS and a
pre mix with burned downactivity with a quarter round of
Power Max as well. And he hadcome into the chemical shed,
like seven or eight days afterwe sprayed it, and said
everything was smoked except thedowny brome in one field that
was known to have downy bromepressure. Downey Brome can be
(08:19):
tough to kill anyway. But Idrive to the field, and you can
tell the UAM burned. It realbad. But, you know, you look at
the crown of that plant, andthose plants, they they were
green as could be. Then the realproblem was, you know, by the
time you figure that out, that,you know, your glyphosate was
probably, you know, messed withby your ATS, that non GMO corn
(08:43):
was emerged, so now we justbought 80 acres of accident Q,
so you really have to be carefulon on your volume of ATS with
that so and that one again, BillJohnson did a study on that,
looking at wheat termination inthe spring, and Pretty much
reported everything that I seenthat day.
Alyssa Essman (09:03):
Yeah, really good thoughts. There. You've brought
up a couple things that kind oflead us into where we're going
next year. So all of us look atherbicide labels a lot, and this
is one of the things thatsometimes we see on a herbicide
label, one way or the other,right? And it's very dependent
on what we're looking at. So canyou walk us through some of the
pros and cons, or the risks andbenefits that come with
(09:27):
fertilizer as a carrier versuswater?
Caleb Wepprecht (09:31):
Well, I think timing wise, probably you know,
if we're talking pre corn, Inever you know did anything
fertilizer, carrier on a prebean situation, but I did, I did
try thiazol once with two pintsof boundary and six ounces of a
generic self venture zone once.And you know, it was 15 gallons
(09:54):
per acre total. So it was sevengallons of ATS and eight gallons
of water. And believe it or not,didn't. Into any issues. There
was no yield bump across thatgrowers fields. But it's not
something I would recommenddoing. I didn't feel that
comfortable doing it, but wedid, because he wanted to try
it. But in terms of pre corn,it's really about timing. I
mean, you look at your options,you could do fall, applied
(10:16):
ammonia, you know, springapplied ammonia. If you can, you
know, have the time to get inthe field to do that this, this
is one of those springs that weactually probably did have time
to do that, or still, stillcould. But it's really about
timing, I think, you know, andin a burn down situation, it's
probably going to help yourherbicide activity on eMERGE
weeds.
Sarah Lancaster (10:36):
So, Caleb, I'm going to throw a little bit of a
curveball, right? So I'm at KState, where the wheat state,
how much wheat and feed do youguys do? I know you have limited
wheat acres compared to what wehave here, but you know, how
much wheat and feed type ofthings do you have for top
dressing wheat? And you know, doyou see, how many like parallels
(10:57):
or differences do you seebetween that scenario and a burn
down scenario. Does that makesense? Yeah,
Caleb Wepprecht (11:03):
Yeah I think I know your estimates are, so I'll
be honest my my herbicideactivity on wheat experience is
very limited. That was actually,I told Dr Hager yesterday. He
probably knows more about thatthan I do, because we had
sprayed, you know, we hadsprayed plenty of nitrogen on
wheat, but we never really raninto a situation where we had
to, you know, put any two, 4din, or anything that it's spring
(11:25):
of 2019, of course, everybodyremembers we had planned to do
that. And then, of course, itgot wet. And then by the time we
actually could, the wheat was,was way too tall to do. So I
actually don't have a lot ofexperience with herbicide, you
know, on post emerge wheat, whenit comes to fertilize security.
But I know Dr Hager does
Aaron Hager (11:44):
actually, Sarah, when, when I first started here
at Illinois, I think we hadsomewhere around a million acres
of winter wheat here in thestate. Now we're not anywhere
near that, and still, the vastmajority of the wheat grown in
Illinois is grown in thesouthern, probably third of the
state. Well, that also happensto be an area of the state where
(12:04):
wild garlic is very common, andso fairly common practice in
those geographic areas where thethreshold for garlic is
essentially zero, given thepotential for Dockage at the
elevator when they when folksare top dressing their wheat in
the spring of the year, usually,you know, UAN solution, they'll
use either harmony or harmonyextra. And with that UAN to try
(12:27):
to control that wild garlic. Noweither, they probably use both
about equally. But a couple ofthings to think about. You know,
if you look at the labels of theproducts, they will tell you
that if the volume of UAN isless than 50% of the total
solution, you probably shouldadd additional surfactant to it.
However, if it's over 50% thenthe labels will caution you that
(12:51):
you might actually see increasedinjury to the wheat if you do
add the surfactant. So it's notjust about adding it. It really
you need to consider what isgoing to be the the volume of
the UAN in terms of the totalsolution that you're going to be
applying to the wheat crop, andthen whether or not, if you are
using something like a harmony,Harmony extra, or any other, any
(13:12):
other herbicide, for thatmatter, what the label would
suggest that you use for anyadditional spray, additive or
caution against using,
Sarah Lancaster (13:19):
yeah, I think that's Interesting. A lot of
times when you're lookingthrough those labels, sometimes
it will say you can use UAN as acarrier full stop. Sometimes it
says you can use UAN up to acertain percentage of the spray
volume. And then you have allthese caveats, like you said
about mis and crop injury versusweed control and all the things
(13:41):
we talk about with adjuvants. Soyeah, yeah,
Aaron Hager (13:44):
and you probably the folks in Kansas use a wider
variety of herbicides in theirspring wheat. And what we do
here, again, vast majority of itwould be treated with something
like a pipe and sulfur oncontaining herbicide, much less
so with everything else. So
Alyssa Essman (14:00):
what are you we've all touched on, kind of
this injury component. What aresome specific situations where
using fertilizer as a carriercan cause issues? I know Caleb,
you got the cottage cheesestory. Is there any other
interesting stories orsituations you've run into where
you've had some issues withthis?
Caleb Wepprecht (14:21):
I don't, I don't think so, as long as you
you just watch the the ratio ofthe ATS with your total tank
volume. I never really had anyissues. I mean, I've seen post,
post corn, side dress foliarwith UAN, which you can't miss
that. I mean, if you're drivingin the countryside, you will
(14:42):
certainly tell that. That's whathappened there. But other than
that, there really wasn'tanything, as far as burn goes,
that I would be too worriedabout. I mean, the UAN by
itself, with our modern day premixes and that I really haven't
heard of any true design.Masters happening in the
countryside. It's alwaysbasically been when you throw
(15:04):
thiasel into that mixture. Andthe thing about thiasol is it's
it's sometimes can beinconsistent. Sometimes this
tank mix worked last year andthen this year it doesn't. Or
sometimes it worked yesterdayand today it didn't. It's just
kind of one of those weirdthings. It's just something that
can be a valuable tool to, youknow, feed your crop, but you
really got to be careful withit. So, and that's just one of
those things. I think experienceprobably is going to play a big
(15:27):
role.
Aaron Hager (15:28):
And Alyssa, you know, there's very few that I
can think of, off the top of myhead, very few labels of foliar
applied herbicides that wouldallow you to use the fertilizer
as a carrier. And again, becauseof those concerns about
significant crop injury, theremay have been one or two, but,
you know, historically, it'sjust a practice that really
(15:49):
hasn't been done now, you know,years and years ago, and I'm
talking probably here back, youknow, in the 1980s for example,
when we had a much narrower, Iguess, number of products, you
know, I think years ago, when Iwas an intern with BASF, we had
bare and, you know, back wayback when, if, if velvetleaf was
(16:10):
your target species in thefield, then the label would say,
you know, add 28% to that. Andit may be two quarts. It may be
four quarts based on the size ofthe velvetleaf. Whereas if you
had something, maybe your targetspecies was common lambs
quarters, then it would say,Well, if you run 28% we know
(16:31):
you're not going to control us.We would, you know, the
recommendation would be toswitch over to crop oil
concentrate. What really seemedto usher in the era of using
ammonium sulfate in our fullyapplied products, is when the
Roundup Ready technology cameinto the marketplace, and
virtually every application, youknow, since that time has
probably included some kind ofan AMS fertilizer in there with
(16:54):
it. Now it does a couple ofother you know, a couple of good
things. Number one, I think themost important thing it does
probably it really helpsprecipitate out the diving
cations from the water solution.And so if you had a scenario
where you had a lot of calciumin your water supply, and that
calcium complexes with thenegative charge on the
glyphosate molecule, calciumglyphosate is not absorbed very
(17:17):
well. And so that's a reallybenefit of having that ammonium
sulfate, you know, lower carriervolumes also really helped
roundup work quite effectively.And I think that was fairly
common practice, you know, ofcourse, in the great plain stage
for years, just a low volume totry to reduce that antagonism of
divalent cations withglyphosate. So, and there could
be, you know, there has beensome evidence that the ammonium
(17:37):
part of it does, you know, maybeperhaps aid in the Trans
membrane movement of glyphosateinto a cell. But, you know, I
guess the way I've alwaysthought about it, you probably
get the most benefit of AMS inthat, in that conditioning of
the wall.
Sarah Lancaster (17:52):
So that leads me to a question I'd be curious
to pick the three of you all'sbrains on this one I got in my
inbox A while back, guy says,I'm tired of hauling bags of
AMS. I'm using ATS in my burndown. Why can't I just use ATS
to condition my water instead ofAMS?
Caleb Wepprecht (18:14):
I would be awfully concerned about burn on
that I wouldn't go with ATS.There is liquid AMS, which I
would probably be morecomfortable using. I know there
are a lot of facilities andlocations that do that probably
reduce your risk of burn. Imean, I'd have to think that,
you know, ATS is probably goingto be similar to what a UA
(18:34):
interior would look like. AMS isa little bit safer in that
regard. And the other thing too,is adding to Dr hagers, point
about glyphosate is, you know,the antagonistic minerals in our
hard water in the Midwest, theyhave the potential to reduce
efficacy of a lot of herbicidesthat we're using in the
countryside these days. I mean,it's, you know, group ones,
group twos, HPPD inhibitors,even even glucosinate. So a lot
(18:59):
of you know, a lot of chemistrythat would be in the countryside
could be affected by that so,but yeah, as far as ATS, instead
of AMS, I really wouldn't adviseto do that. I would go with
liquid AMS if he wants and ifthat's what he's after. But a
little side note on liquid AMS,it's usually 34% AMS. It's a
(19:21):
seven, oh, grade. And I believe,I believe, it contains four
pounds of AMS per gallon. So ifyou ever run into a situation
where you're halfway through aload and your liquid tank runs
dry, you run out of bags and yougot to switch. You know, that's
quick math for you. Becausedon't ask me how I know that
that does happen.
Aaron Hager (19:42):
You want. One thing I've always tried to remind
folks down through time is that,you know your major investment
is in the herbicide right? Yourless than major investment is
going to be with the sprayadditives. Now, if you pick the
right spray additive, you'regoing to be okay. You. Pick the
wrong one, and all of a suddenthat big investment that you
(20:02):
just made in the herbicide isgoing to return a whole lot less
on that investment.
Sarah Lancaster (20:07):
Yeah, sometimes there's no, there's no easy
button, right?
Aaron Hager (20:15):
And you know, I guess it's, it's been my
experience down through theyears that most of the
registrants when they writelabels, you know, they've done
the work. They know which arethe best additives to include
and which ones really should notbe included. You know, all of
our all of our field programs. Iknow ours is, and I'm sure Sarah
(20:36):
and the list is yours as well.You know, these are some of the
treatments that we do look at,as we partner with our industry
colleagues to evaluate whatmight be either the, you know,
the best spray additive or theworst spray additive, or the
best carrier volume, orsomething that would be less
than best. So there's been a lotof work that goes into what the
(20:56):
registrants put on labels interms of recommendations for
volume, for spray additives,for, you know, do this, but
don't do that kinds of things.And that's always the best place
to begin. You know, your yourinvestigation is read the label,
Caleb Wepprecht (21:10):
and if you really wanted to, you know, get
down to cost, which is always atalk talking point. But I think
two and a half to three poundsof AMS would be between three
and $4 an acre, and ATS is goingto be ATS will be more than
that. So I think that that wouldbe a much, much safer, more cost
effective route, no doubt aboutit.
Aaron Hager (21:33):
Yeah, one thing we haven't really touched on yet
that I think is pretty importantis that, you know, most sections
of the labels, when they talkabout different either types of
additives or tank mixes orcarriers or whatever may be, you
know, they would stronglyencourage you before you do the
500 gallon mix load, you know,do take a little time and do
(21:54):
this little thing called a jartest. And it been a while since
I read that part of some labels,but for some odd reason, I was
reading it the other day, maybeI was trying to get ready for
our discussion here today. Idon't remember what, but looking
at a label and how they reallywere very specific and very
clear on how to actually dothese jar tests. It's not just
(22:17):
you slop in a little bit ofeverything that you're going to
throw in the tank and see whathappens or what doesn't happen,
but very, very specific detailson what volume of an
emulsifiable concentrate itshould be, what volume of a SC
formulation should be includedin that jar test. So it's not
something that you have to kindof guess about. It's usually
(22:38):
very well spelled out on labelson how to do this and again, as
you know, Caleb's earlierreference to a tank load of
cottage cheese, you know, couldresult in saving some pretty
substantial dollars if you knewahead of time that this is not
going to be a mix, it's going tonot going to flow very well out
of the nozzles.
Sarah Lancaster (22:55):
I have an agent here in Kansas who likes to say
a jar test is way easier toclean up than a tank test. Yes,
yeah,
Aaron Hager (23:03):
there's a very wise person
Sarah Lancaster (23:06):
from experience a time or two. Aaron, your label
comment brings up another pointthat I and Caleb touched on this
earlier, just mixing order, Ithink especially when we're
thinking about using some ofthese kind of alternative
fertilizer carriers that can be,that can be a thing, right? Can
you guys think of any otherCaleb you had that one example
(23:28):
earlier of putting ATS in last?Can you think of any other like
examples or scenarios?
Caleb Wepprecht (23:35):
Well, a lot of the a lot of the systems and
chemical sheds nowadays are allautomated, so you can pre
program those, which makes itextremely handy. I mean, that
takes some of the stress away inthe spring, which is, you know,
that's nothing, but a chemicalshed is, is one big stress area.
But, yeah, as far as mixingorder goes, a lot of them are
(23:57):
pre programmed. And, you know,it'll give you a certain amount
of gallons that you can preprogram ahead of time to a lot
for your mix bowl. So if you're,you know, carriers pumping
faster than what you're mixingin the mix bowl, it'll stop, you
know, to allow that mix bowl,you know, that that product to
go in. So, yeah, mix order, itshouldn't be too big. Video,
(24:18):
now, of course, if growers arespraying their own. I would
recommend having a, you know,printed out sheet on the wall by
where they mix, or somethingthat goes over mix order, and
even have the products they'reusing listed on that sheet so
they can't, you know, there'sno, you know, mishap or
misinterpretation, but yeah,thiis always went in last, or it
(24:39):
should go in last, but yeah. Imean, a lot of those, lot of
those systems are automated andpre programmed, which makes it
pretty nice. Never used to bethat way. So,
Alyssa Essman (24:48):
yeah. So some of these comments, you know, Aaron
talks about, we're making aherbicide application. We want
that to be our priority. And itmade me think about the number
of options now, of things.Things that can be thrown in a
tank mix. I'm curious if youhave any thoughts on any of
those special products thatwould have an interaction of
some sort, one way or another,with with fertilizer as a
(25:11):
carrier versus water
Caleb Wepprecht (25:13):
well, and that's, you know, any product
that goes into a tank. You know,the more products you have, the
more chance there is thatsomething could potentially go
wrong. But I don't think that,as far as the fertilizer
interaction, I don't know ifthat'll be so much an issue as
what other herbicide you knowyou might have in there, or
other product you might have inthere. So I guess when it comes
(25:35):
down to that, again, you know,jar test could be your best
friend. But also, before youeven look into that, make sure
that whatever this product isthat you want to explore with
your operation is actually worthexploring. Make sure you
actually understand what what isin that job would be, my advice
there.
Aaron Hager (25:52):
Yeah, there's examples, of course. And Sarah,
I think you wrote about this inone of your last newsletter
articles. You know, if you arerunning something like a UAN
solution, esters tend to mixbetter in a UAN solution than
does a salt formulation. So andagain, you know, you may know
that you may see that on thelabel, but if that label is
(26:14):
recommending that you do thatjar test first, highly advisable
to do that, because the lastplace that you want to discover
a mishap is something thatdoesn't mix well, is when you
get in the field and you flipthe switch and you nothing comes
out of the nozzles.
Caleb Wepprecht (26:28):
And even, I mean, we always kept just a
couple jars that, you know, inthe office of the chemical shed.
You know, you walk by them, youknow, 100 times each day thing.
And I don't know, whoever usethose things. And we use one one
time in five years. I'm reallyglad we did just put it that
way, that box, nobody touch it.
Aaron Hager (26:50):
Take your hands off my jars.
Alyssa Essman (26:55):
I think we've covered a lot of these, you
know, tank, mix, compatibilityand other things that come up.
Are there any other applicationsor different considerations that
that we're kind of missing inthis discussion here?
Aaron Hager (27:07):
I guess the only other, the only other thing I
thought about, you know, wetalked a lot about UA hand and
ammonium thiosulfate, but youknow, some suspension type
fertilizers, you know, we canrun into issues with those kinds
of fertilizer solutions, ifthey're using, like a clay base
for the suspension agents. And,you know, something like
paraquat comes into mind. Youknow, paraquat is strongly
(27:30):
adsorbed to things like clays orother soil colloids. So that
could be a consideration also,but, but again, you know, those
kind of things would be spelledout on, you know, for this
example would be spelled outvery clearly on the garbox, on
Sarah Lancaster (27:43):
label. One thing that I had come across my
desk in the last couple of weeksalong this topic was nozzle
selection for these types ofapplications, you know, so right
streamers for for a fertilizerapplication, obviously is not
going to work if our primarygoal is herbicide application.
So, I don't know. Maybe Caleb,you want to talk about some of
(28:05):
your experiences aroundapplication equipment for some
of these applications,
Caleb Wepprecht (28:11):
unless, unless you have a true, complete
disaster. I don't think youknow, nozzle plugging would be a
problem. You know, there's somuch pressure, and these, these
flood nozzles, are hard to plug.I mean, I've never seen that
actually happen. I have seen,and this is not, this has
nothing to do with withfertilizer, by any means, but I
(28:33):
have seen the, you know, likethe little first rate packets
that they say you can throw intothe mix bowl, and they'll
dissolve. They don't alwaysdissolve. And they can plug the
sprayer screen roughly, quick,and that's not a very pleasant
phone call from the operatorthere. So, and it's really not
good when you know that you haveabout three other trucks sitting
at the field waiting to load asprayer with that same thing. So
(28:55):
that that's one thing I wouldadvise, but that's got nothing
to do with fertilizers. Carrier.That was just a post soybean
application so, but, yeah, Iwouldn't. I would open those
little packets,
Aaron Hager (29:06):
I mean. And the only other thing I guess I'd
add, Sarah, you know, if you'remaking this application of a,
let's just say a soil residualherbicide under, you know,
ground has already been tilled,probably not going to be a huge
issue. But if this is also goingto be part of your burn down,
and you are using something likea UAN as a carrier, you know its
(29:27):
density is more than out ofwater, so that can affect your
your flow rate. Maybe not somuch with today's modern
equipment, but you know,consider the coverage also. The
last thing that you want to dowould be compromise your
coverage. If there is aherbicide in that UAN carrier
that you need to control anyexisting vegetation in that
field.
Alyssa Essman (29:47):
I think that's kind of what I had for today's
topic. Sarah, did you have anyfinal burning questions or or
Aaron or Caleb? Any any lastthoughts? Yeah,
Aaron Hager (29:58):
I guess the only, the only thing, I guess. Of the
partying comment I would make,you know is, we're here at the
outset of another growingseason. You know, just wish
everybody all the best and justbe safe. You know, take your
time, rest as you need to. It's,you know, it's so important to
be able to, you know, do yourjob, to go home to your family
at the end of the day. Also,
Alyssa Essman (30:18):
I love that reminder. Let's end on that. So
thank you so much Aaron andKayla for joining us today. Do
you? Do you have any labwebsites or or social media
accounts that folks can maybefollow along and get more
information from
Caleb Wepprecht (30:33):
you? We actually, it's funny as that.
We're kind of renovating our webpage right now. We're kind of
bringing it up to date, up tospeed, so it will be, it will be
public knowledge once it's done.And it actually is now, but
we're working on getting it donenow where we'll have trials and
data posted and that sort ofthing. So that'll be, hopefully
available later this spring.
Aaron Hager (30:53):
I have a Twitter account. It's UI Weed Science. I
actually started that in 2017which happened to coincide with
the beginning of the Dicamba useof soybean, and really wish I
hadn't started it that year, butI still haven't. So
Alyssa Essman (31:06):
all right, so find more information from Aaron
and Caleb there. Thank you allfor listening along with us
today, and we'll We hope you'lltune in next week to the War
Against Weeds podcast.
You thanks for tuning in. Just areminder, you can find this and
(31:26):
other podcasts and resources onthe crop protection network.
This network has a host ofinformation from extension
programs across the US about allthings pest management. We hope
to catch you next week on thewar against weeds. Podcast.
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