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Pasture & Brushweeds

Delivering a complete suite of crop protection solutions for today’s farmers.

We combine our world class global research pipeline with our local understanding of pasture production to develop, launch and deliver to market an innovative portfolio of products meeting the needs of the New Zealand farmer. 

Our pasture and brushweed portfolio includes product options that provide a solution for most scenarios typically encountered in New Zealand’s landscape.

Featured Products

Our portfolio of powerful, proven products covers crop protection herbicides to control docks, thistles, gorse as well as other broad-leaved and brush weeds.

Optimising your Pasture Production

We've developed a pasture protection portfolio specfically for New Zealand farmers; a portfolio which provides a solution for every situation and ensures they can produce a high-quality crop, maximise on-farm returns, and protect their livelihoods for generations to come.

New Pasture Weed Control

Download our selection chart to find the best products to target the problem weeds in your new or established pastures.

Brushweed Control

The control of Brushweeds is a regular expense item on most pastoral properties.  Although the control of Brushweeds is synonymous with use of herbicides, other farm management practices play an important part in a successful overall programme.

The use of herbicides is only one part of the programme and the failure to carry out complementary farm management practices can result in limited progress.

Methods of Application

The most suitable application method at a particular site will be determined by factors such as topography.  Weed size, accessibility, availability of water and spray equipment.  Aerial application is the most cost effective method on solid blocks of gorse in hill country or other areas where ground access is difficult.

Aerial spraying, particularly in hill country, is a skilled operation and spray needs to be released close to the target to get the maximum amount of herbicide on the bushes and reduce off-target drift of spray droplets to a minimum.

Brushgun treatment is most suitable for treating scattered infestations, particularly when bushes are up to two metres high.

Motorized Knapsacks are most efficient for treating scattered bushes less than one metre high on steeper hill country where access is more difficult and water is not readily available. 

Where only a few isolated bushes occur either cutting the stems at ground level and immediately swabbing the stumps or spraying the base of the stems can be the most cost effective method.

Application Technique

Ground applications should be made from all directions to full cover both foliage and stems.  Do not use gun spraying pressures of less than 1000kPa or greater than 2000kPa.

In large dense patches of gorse where full coverage is difficult to achieve it is more practicable to leave the centre unsprayed and treat the following year when the bushes on the perimeter have broken down.

For aerial application it is recommended that the herbicide be applied in 400 litres of water per hectare using the half overlap-opposite pass technique.  Best results from aerial treatment are achieved on gorse less than 2 metres high which have stems of less than 3cm diameter.

If gorse is larger than this, consideration should be given to desiccating and burning.

Tordon Weed Control Products

Discover our Tordon range of weed control products by downloading our handy weed reference chart.

Californian thistle control

Make it stick - second Cali spray is the missing link.

In the battle against one of New Zealand’s most unwanted pasture weeds, Californian thistle is winning more than it should be at the moment.

And one of the reasons for that is coming up very soon – a specific spray window in late summer or early autumn that routinely gets missed, thereby setting the stage for continued infestation in the year ahead.

Ian Kirkland, upper North Island territory sales manager for Corteva Agriscience, says it’s no wonder farmers get disheartened when their efforts to control Calis don’t seem to work.

If they don’t adopt a two-spray programme over 12 months from the get go, with a good understanding of how this persistent species grows and spreads, they usually end up back where they started.

One herbicide application over 12 months is simply not enough.

Thistles sprayed at hardball stage late last year, for example, will have died on top of the soil but the massive underground root system supporting each plant will have already retaliated by sending up fresh new shoots nearby.

And it’s these that need to be hit hard in coming weeks, ideally at about knee high, with plenty of green leafy growth to absorb the herbicide and allow it to be carried down to the roots.

After 16 years in the field, Ian Kirkland has seen enough paddocks to notice the impact of more and more farmers skipping that second spray, which he describes as the missing link in most control programmes.

“The problem certainly seems to be getting worse. People are effectively dedicating huge areas to cropping Calis. I’ve seen that through my own territory, in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty, as well as down south.

“They’re even encroaching north of Auckland where traditionally they weren’t seen. It’s widespread and very noticeable.”

He puts this proliferation of Calis down to a lack of understanding about the plant in general, as well as a plethora of information (and misinformation), opinion and theory about how to control it.

“It’s easy for farmers to get confused, and then discouraged.”

But it’s also easy for reps to start setting them straight with sound advice and the right herbicide, as of now.  

“If your clients did spray at hardball stage back in November or December, great. Now it’s time to execute the second half of the plan. Get them organised to follow up and use Tordon™ Pasture Boss™ to kill the new shoots which have emerged following that first spray. 

“If they didn’t spray late last year, this is when their two-spray programme starts – one Tordon Pasture Boss application in late summer, with another in spring.”

Bad infestations may need two years of this programmed approach, but the first year will go a long way towards breaking the back of the problem, he says.

“Tordon Pasture Boss is the best of the bunch, but it’s still not a one-shot application. They can’t just spray and walk away, wave goodbye from the gate.”

The withholding periods are relatively short (three days for milk; seven days for meat) and although it will damage clover, pasture production and grazing is already much reduced where thistle populations are high, and that ground will be re-gained the following season, he says.

What’s more important than any herbicide is often a change in mindset.

“Farmers get overloaded with information, the message is diluted, and in some cases they end up not even starting a control programme.

“They need confidence in the fact that they can get things turned around, with the right advice and the right approach. And reps are the people best placed to help them achieve this.”

For more detail contact your Corteva AgriScience territory sales manager. 

Pasture & Brushweed Products

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2,4-DB

Herbicide

For the control of broadleaf weeds in lucerne and new pastures

Apache

Herbicide

For control of brushweeds, as well as annual and perennial weeds in pasture and waste areas.

Grazon

Herbicide

Controls gorse, broom and a range of other brushweeds.

Lorsban50EC

Insecticide

Lorsban 50EC Insecticide controls many sucking and chewing insects in fruit crops, vine crops, field crops and pasture.

Lorsban 750 WG

Insecticide

Controls insects in tree and vine fruit, pasture and onions.

Pasture-Kleen Xtra

Herbicide

Controls broadleaf weeds in pastures.

Preside

Herbicide

For post emergent management of broadleaf weeds in clover, lucerne, chicory, new and mature pasture and maize.

Select

Herbicide

Controls broadleaf weeds in pastures, grass, white clover seed crops, peas and cereals.

TordonPastureBoss

Herbicide

A selective herbicide for the control of annual and perennial broadleaf weeds in pastures.

Tordon 2G Gold 

Herbicide

Controls many difficult-to-kill perennial weeds such as Ragwort, Thistles, Oxeye Daisy and Giant Buttercup, among others.

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