Arietta has been a long time coming, but its market and performance potential should quickly make up for the wait, the company

says.

Featuring a new active (topramezone), excellent crop safety and an unprecedented window of use on key broadleaf and grass

weeds, it was already on the radar for New Zealand growers and the trade well before registration came through just prior to Christmas.
 

In his previous role with Fruitfed Supplies, new BASF territory manager Tim Geuze, was one of those keen to see Arietta on the local market and now he’s looking forward to helping support its full roll out ahead of the next spring sowing season.
 

He says grower treated blocks of sweetcorn in Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay, Pukekohe, maize crops in Waikato and trials this season

in Feilding have shown very favourable results, and the outcome of commercial application to a late sown seed sweetcorn

crop in Gisborne also bodes very well for later in the year.
 

“It will be a significant product for NZ growers and merchants. Arietta has a lot of benefits but probably the most important one is

that it combines excellent efficacy with more flexibility in terms of application timing.”
 

As an example, he says, it will kill both yellow bristle grass and broom corn millet at up to the three tiller stage, while broadleaf

weeds such as black nightshade, fathen, willow weed and Apple of Peru can be killed at up to eight true leaves.
 

Alternative actives need to be applied when weeds are at earlier stages of growth to achieve control, he says, and growers often

end up making two post emergence passes over the crop to get a good kill of late grass weeds in particular.
 

Another benefit is that Arietta is applied with half as much atrazine as other post emergence options, helping reduce growers’

use of atrazine and also reducing the risk of potential resistance or soil residue issues, he says.
 

The new herbicide doesn’t eliminate the need for pre emergence weed control with acetechlor, for example, but should make

post emergence spraying more efficient as well as more effective for many growers.
 

Tested on hundreds of varieties of maize and sweetcorn overseas, Arietta provides excellent crop safety even on highly susceptible crops like seed sweetcorn, Geuze says.

For more detail visit www.basf.co.nz