Effectiveness of Hexazinone LS 25 for pre-emergent control of weeds in sugarcane

Abstract

Given the country's financial deficit for the acquisition of pre-emergent herbicides, the Cuban chemical industry is developing new agrochemicals for the control of weeds in sugarcane. Of them, the effectiveness and toxic effect on the crop is unknown, among which is Hexazinone LS 25. An investigation was developed in commercial production areas of the production unit "Romana VII", Sugar Enterprise “America Libre” of Santiago de Cuba province with the objective of evaluating the effectiveness of Hexazinone LS 25 of national production and crop tolerance, compared with different pre-emergent herbicides for the control of weeds in sugarcane. An experiment was established in the period from September to December 2020 for the cold cycle and cultivar ‘B7274’, on a typical Brown soil with carbonates. A randomized block experimental design with eight treatments and five replications was used. The products evaluated were Isoxaflutole, Imazapic, Merlin Total, Hexazinone LS 25, as well as the combination Isoxaflutole + Hexazinone LS 25. The results were processed with the statistical package Statistica v. 8. It was demonstrated that the application of the national formulation of Hexazinone LS 25 at doses of 3.0 and 3.5 L ha-1 achieved the best control of weeds without causing phytotoxic damage to the crop.

Keywords

• agrochemicals
• efficacy
• phytotoxicity