With today’s high corn prices, growers have an outstanding opportunity to maximize their profitability when they maximize their corn yields.

However, growers risk leaving a lot of yield and profit in the field if they depend only on post glyphosate applications to control weeds in Roundup Ready® corn. Instead, the use of a soil-applied herbicide to control weeds before they compete with early emerging corn protects yields and maximizes profitability.

Recently, 35 university trials conducted in nine states over the course of two years confirmed that spraying a soil-applied herbicide — such as Surpass® or Keystone® herbicide — prior to corn emergence, followed by a glyphosate spray, increased yields by an average of 7 percent versus a single post glyphosate application.1

Dow AgroSciences has updated its Profit Calculator so that you can use it to show your growers how they can protect their profitability with the use of a soil-applied herbicide. The calculator allows you to enter the expected yield per acre, the price of a bushel of corn and the rate of Surpass you choose to use.

For example, let’s say a corn grower expects to produce 175 bu./A with a three-quarters rate of Surpass and a post spray of Durango® herbicide, and that corn can be sold for $3 per bushel. The grower would net $510 per acre after subtracting the cost of Surpass.

In comparison, if that acre of corn produced 7 percent less yield (162.5 bu./A) because the grower chose to use only a post application of glyphosate, and weeds and grasses competed with emerging corn for nutrients and moisture, then the grower would net only $488.40 per acre.

That’s a difference of $21.60 per acre just by controlling weeds and grasses before they can compete with corn. In this example, a producer with 1,000 acres of corn would on average earn $21,600 more by controlling weeds and grasses early with a soil-applied herbicide.

In addition, with several weeds having been confirmed as resistant to glyphosate and several more considered tolerant, Dow AgroSciences recommends rotating herbicides with different modes of activity to break up the repeated use of glyphosate and manage glyphosate resistance or tolerance.

Losing the effectiveness of glyphosate could certainly make weed control more challenging and costly for growers. Using a soil-applied herbicide, followed by glyphosate, can give growers the opportunity for better weed control, better yields and more profit.

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