To Bruce Schmidt, agronomy manager at Belle Plaine Co-op in Belle Plaine, MN, using adjuvants presents a win-win opportunity for both retailers and their customers. The customers get more efficient use of their herbicides, and the retailers find opportunities to grow their businesses during times of reduced margins.

“Promoting the use of adjuvants is another avenue for us as retailers to give growers products they need and give us a little more margin than what we're getting on some of our herbicides,” Schmidt says. “Adjuvant use is going to be steady or increase in the future as new postemerge herbicides are introduced. Any that are being introduced now need to have an adjuvant to work well.”

Just what does Schmidt mean by work well? “It's got to be compatible with the product it's being used with first,” he says. “It's got to do a good job of breaking down the waxy layer on the weed leaf so the herbicide can do an effective job.”

Wilbur-Ellis and Agriliance are two among many companies now offering adjuvants to dealers to provide more efficient use of herbicides during the application process.

“Adjuvants are becoming more concentrated and that's important,” Schmidt says. “In the early years we were putting on five gallons a hundred. There was a lot of product in the mix tank. Now the rates are getting down to a gallon or a gallon and a half. That's a positive as we work to sell more to our customers.”

Bob Herzfeld, adjuvant business manager for Agriliance, notes that managing drift should remain a high priority for retailers. Adjuvants can fit nicely for some retailers in meeting customer needs in this area. Agriliance sells a product called Placement Propak, which aids in minimizing drift and provides effective penetration and uptake of the herbicide.

Schmidt, who has yet to use drift retardants regularly, says controlling drift is also a matter of educating growers to be responsible and spray only when “conditions are right.” He says his grower-customers are near a metropolitan area and have an obligation to “spray only when winds are below 15 miles per hour. We sometimes need to shut down for a half day or wait until the next morning.”

The increase in adjuvant use — the result, in part, of the many new postemergence products made available in recent years — is prompting some companies to call for product certification. Jon Leman, marketing and sales manager of branded products for Wilbur-Ellis, is a strong proponent of self-regulation through certification of adjuvants.

Wilbur-Ellis, which sells a number of adjuvants, believes certification means a more uniform system for all companies selling them and raises the visibility and usefulness of the many products available. Leman wants the Chemical Producers and Distributors Association to provide the certification. “Then a consistent set of certification requirements for adjuvants can be taken to state regulatory agencies as a template,” he says.

The education process continues as retailers enlighten customers about the advantages of adjuvants. “Growers are beginning to understand what they need when they come in and order a herbicide,” Schmidt says. “We need to continue to tell them that adjuvants are required.”

Whether growers are applying product themselves or adjuvants are being applied by custom applicators, the bottom line is opportunity. And as more growers are educated about adjuvants as another tool in the agronomic toolbox, growers and retailers/custom applicators will be rewarded with better efficiencies and environmental stewardship.

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