In a discovery that is welcoming news to many grain growers, an organo-phosphate insecticide known as phorate has been shown to reverse metabolic resistance to the pre-emergent, soil-applied herbicide trifluralin.

Annual Rye Grass was looked at in the study. covercrops.cals.cornell.edu

     This is great news, but research is still preliminary. "It's a proof of concept," said Roberto Busi, research fellow at the University of Western Australia and researcher at the Australian Herbicide Resistance Initiative. "It is not by any means that we are recommending just yet the practice with the specific insecticide or herbicide that we have been working with, but it is a great and important proof of concept that we can reverse resistance to soil applied herbicide."

     "The research into new herbicide molecules or in particular herbicide modes of action, is very much decreasing, so we have to achieve more, we have to do more with what we already have. That isn't easy, that is why we have to do intensive research to basically allow farmers to still be able to rely on tools that are simple to use, simple to adopt but they may have an improve [sic]efficacy."

     For the full article from abc.net.au, click here or on the link available below.