Country Selector
Gearing up for spring: tackling early weed pressures in cereals
As thoughts turn to Christmas, growers shouldn’t forget the importance of early season weed control in cereals next spring. Although it remains to be seen what spring 2026 will look like, this autumn, residual herbicides went on in warm, dry conditions, so will most likely run out of steam early.
Warm conditions are also promoting continued germination of both grassweeds and broad-leaved weeds. Combining a drop off in efficacy of residual chemistry and continued weed emergence, it is important to control weeds that will take advantage of this such as Bromes, Ryegrass, meadow grasses and broad-leaved weeds, including, cleavers and mayweeds as early as possible before they impact crop performance.
Where residuals have not yet been applied or may have been compromised with poor seedbeds or applied to organic or lighter soil types then meadow grasses will often be dominant by spring. Annual meadow grass is the most common grassweed in the UK, with a wide emergence period and fast lifecycle.
Hugh Guinan, Cereal Herbicide Field Technical Manager for Corteva, said: “It thrives in fertile soils and is encouraged by min-till practices. Less competitive than other grass weeds, it steals nitrogen from the soil and does increase the moisture content of the straw at harvest, which slows progress and affects quality. He added: “Populations can often be high in winter cereals because many lifecycles can occur withing a relatively short space of time, typically six weeks.”
In 2025, Corteva Agrisciences launched Broadway Ultra®, a combination of two of the most effective grassweed herbicides, pyroxsulam and mesosulfuron-methyl, offering arable farmers the ability to control an extensive spectrum of grass and broad-leaved weeds in a single pass.
Broadway Ultra applied at 100g/ha, delivers 14 grams of each active per ha, in an easy to use, wettable granule. “Growers will know that pyroxsulam provides excellent grass and broad-leaved weed control, but there is also a synergistic effect with the mesosulfuron, which brings in control of chickweed, sow thistle, shepherd’s purse and meadow grass. Good control of rat’s tail fescues has also been reported.”
Getting the best results out of Broadway Ultra
Applications may be made in winter wheat and triticale from January the 1st until the middle of May. Growers should use it at a rate of 100g/ha in combination with an approved adjuvant, Corteva says.
Hugh said: “It’s quite a wide window of application, but we always advise growers to treat weeds early, when they are small and actively growing, these conditions can often occur in late January and early February, so growers need to be prepared ahead of the season.”
On-farm use in 2025 demonstrated excellent results from this early timing, taking out grass-weed competition early, whilst dealing with a range of broad-leaved weeds.
He added that the product could deliver the greatest benefit when residual programmes have been compromised, leading to an increased burden of grass and broad-leaved weeds to tidy up in spring.
With excellent crop safety, the tank-mix compatibility list is long, allowing spray operators the flexibility of a wide range of ALS joint applications with both Corteva ALS herbicides as well as those from other manufacturers.
Insights and updates will be shared throughout the season.
For further information, please contact our technical hotline on 0800 689 8899, e-mail: ukhotline@corteva.com or send us an enquiry using this online form.