Potato injury risk and weed control from reduced rates of PPO-inhibiting herbicides

Abstract

The ability to use the protoporphyrinogen oxidase (PPO)-inhibiting herbicides fomesafen, flumioxazin, and sulfentrazone in potato is limited regionally or by soil texture, largely because of crop injury noted in research in the 1990s. With that in mind, we evaluated whether reducing the herbicide rates could maintain weed control while providing more consistent crop safety. Studies were conducted on a silt loam and a coarse-textured loamy sand soil. Soil texture played a greater than anticipated role in PPO-inhibitor herbicide injury risk as it relates to high-precipitation events. For example, in 2020 at the silt loam location, there were five precipitation events across the season that exceeded 2.5 cm, including one 6 d after treatment (DAT), and a seasonal total precipitation that was over 10 cm greater than the previous year. Despite excessive moisture and initial potato injury as high as 27% where flumioxazin was applied at the high rate with S-metolachlor, by 29 DAT injury was less than 10% in all treatments, and marketable tuber yield was similar among treatments. In contrast, in 2020 at the loamy sand location, there were four precipitation events across the season that exceeded 2.5 cm, and potato injury was as much as 60%. In 2020 the high amount of injury from flumioxazin was hypothesized to be caused by precipitation before herbicide application and not after, suggesting a need for more research in this area. This work documents the fine line between yield reduction presumably caused by reduced weed control and yield reduction assumed to be related to herbicide injury. This delineation between adequate weed control and consistent crop safety may differ by soil texture and environmental conditions, supporting the notion that custom-tailored weed management may become more necessary as high-precipitation events become more common in upper midwestern U.S. agricultural systems.