A POWERFUL new black-grass herbicide has been launched by Bayer.

Hamlet is a post-emergence herbicide for winter wheat that has been added to Bayer's strong stable of black-grass products, such as Atlantis WG (mesosulfuron + iodosulfuron) and Liberator (flufenacet + diflufenican).

“This offers a step up in control, compared to Atlantis WG,” said Ben Coombs, of Bayer. “We have several years’ data from trials and the improvement is about 10% more black-grass control than Atlantis WG and a similar amount for rye-grass.”

The active substances in Hamlet are mesosulfuron, iodosulfuron and diflufenican. Bayer has used these actives in other products, but a new formulation in Hamlet sets it apart. It also has an advanced oil dispersion formulation that increases speed and quantity of uptake of the active substances by the plant.

However, farmers that used to Atlantis WG need to be aware of one or two differences to get the most out of the new product, according to Dr Gordon Anderson-Taylor, of Bayer.

“Hamlet should be used during the autumn and winter period when its diflufenican component will provide maximum efficacy. So, we would not recommend using it once spring growth starts.

“With Hamlet, it’s probably better to focus on how early you can spray it rather than how late. Our trials show that early application gives you an improvement against black-grass with enhanced metabolism resistance (EMR) – the most common type of resistance in UK black-grass.”

The aim is to apply Hamlet when black-grass is at the 1-3 leaf stage before it tillers – typically, that will mean applying from November onwards.

“Hamlet is the last stage in a programme that uses delayed drilling – around October 15 – paired with Liberator and probably one or two other products at pre-em. After the pre-em, any survivors are weakened so coming back in the autumn with a post-em means that the whole programme gets an uplift in control,” said Dr Anderson-Taylor.

It should be applied with the adjuvant, biopower, in a spray volume of 100-300 l/ha as a fine/medium spray.