CONVISO® ONE – Approach to a system analysis of the herbicide strategy

Based on the actual weed control strategies, which were assembled from a long term survey about cultivation techniques among sugar beet growing farms, changes associated with the herbicide Conviso One are deduced in this study. Chemical weed control is performed in all fields of conventional sugar beet cultivation. On several fields it is complemented by mechanical measures and hand weeding.

In field trials, the long duration and broad spectrum of effects for Conviso One was demonstrated. It is expected that the system consisting of herbicide plus tolerant variety (Conviso Smart) provides solutions for typical problems in common weed control including for example the occurrence of weed beet, oilseed rape/volunteer oilseed rape, or different knotweed or millet species. These characteristics provide conditions to lower the number of herbicide treatments and to reduce the intensity of weed control measures overall. The extent of the reduction depends on the total area of application and the way Conviso One will be combined with other herbicides.

Cost savings for a sugar beet growing farm result from a reduced number of passes, changes in direct costs for herbicides and from omitting the labour-intensive measures of weeding with machines or by hand.

In principle, the risk for increasing the selection pressure on weeds, that are already noteworthy in cereal rotations, needs to be considered. More than 75% of surveyed farms cultivated cereals prior to and after sugar beet, indicating the necessity of a weed control strategy across crop rotation.