2022 Crop Protection: It’s a Brand New World!

Today’s world of crop protection is not the same that you, your father or even your grandfather has ever seen before when it comes to chemical options and availability. Key components to standard chemical programs will be allocated based on availability, if available at all, for your farm.

What options should you consider, even for taking care of such simple items as volunteer corn in your soybean program? First, let’s look at today’s supply chain issues:

• It is a world economy and we are dependent on overseas production and manufacturing.
• 2017: China and India initiated environmental requirements and plants started to shut down. This started supply and demand to become out of balance. Global supply started to be disrupted.
• September 2018: Tariffs started on Chinese goods. This added bricks to compounding issues.
• Logistic issues with an aging workforce on local and global levels.
• COVID: Impacted labor worldwide.
• The world is very dependent on China’s manufacturing and raw ingredients.
• There is a coal shortage in China. Their government has reduced capacity of many plants by 20-30% to save energy for heating season.
• Yellow phosphorus mining was cut drastically in China due to a dry year. Yellow phosphorus is the key component of a lot of short products today:
  • Glyphosate
  • Glufosinate
  • Clethodim
  • and others
• India is an option, but not the short-term answer.
  • Need to work with EPA and it takes time for the conversion.
  • Logistics are backlogged into the United States.
  • Raw ingredients are still coming from China.
• The supply chain in the past had 20-30% carryover products to give a buffer. This was depleted in the 2021 crop year. This buffer is no longer there.

As a farmer, you will not be able to ignore this situation. You will need to be proactive, rather than reactive, to what is taking place, otherwise, you will be scrambling at the last minute looking for products and options. This will not only increase your stress levels as time is getting away from you, but costs could increase, and weeds will continue to grow and reduce yield.

Here are a few things to consider:

• Is tillage an option for weed control? Not only to start clean, but for in-season cultivation.
• Consider other burndown products like Reviton.
• Consider pre options to control weeds since a lot of post options will be short.
• Allocate limited chemicals, glyphosate for example, for only post application and for worse case scenarios.
• Volunteer corn may need to be controlled by older chemistries like Scepter.
• Just getting a chemical like Glufosinate alone may not be an option. There are more options when these are combined with other premix options, like Sinate for Glufosinate resistant corn.
• Sprayer management and knowing what each field trait package is will be key. You may have several different chemical programs on your operation because of allocation of certain primary components.

This year is going to be a challenging year. However, you can still come out on top. Work on backup plans and ‘what if’ scenarios. Be patient and flexible as you work hand in hand with your key supply partners. Stay in constant communication so you are in the know on timing of chemicals becoming available. Some of these may not arrive until just in time use and may be limited.

Reach out to your Liberty Ag Solutions Crop Input Consultant to have further discussion on what options are available through the 2022 season and into the future. This brand-new world has taken years to create and will take the same to solve.