Liberty Herbicide - Post-Emergent Herbicide for Soybeans

When making the decision on soybean trait systems and varieties for the 2022 season, it’s important to understand how to best protect your investment from the toughest weeds. In addition to yield potential and performance, knowing what herbicide options to leverage for successful weed control is critical when evaluating trait systems.  

According to Stratus Ag research, nearly 75% of farmers nationwide deal with glyphosate-resistant weeds.¹ To best battle resistance, you need more effective herbicide options than ever before. Knowing that there are multiple options for weed control in a trait system instills additional confidence in your crop protection plan.

“Farmers should identify the weeds they struggle with on their farm and select the herbicide-tolerant trait system that will be the most effective for their field,” said Kate Greif, BASF product manager. “Many of today’s trait systems feature multiple modes of action to allow for greater flexibility in weed and resistance management.” 

Today’s most popular soybean trait systems include Enlist^® E3, LibertyLink^® GT27 and XtendFlex^® soybeans. While these new traits systems provide additional options for you to meet today’s weed challenges, they do add a layer of complexity and require additional considerations. This is especially true when multiple, different systems are used on the same farm. Considerations like, which herbicides can I use with my trait system? Should I incorporate all the herbicides that are enabled on my farm? Are there benefits to tank-mixing those herbicides, or can I tank-mix them at all? Knowing which herbicides you can apply on which soybean trait systems and using multiple effective modes of action in your weed control plan provides better overall weed control and helps in the fight against resistance development.

“Soybean farmers face a lot of options, especially in the form of herbicide-tolerant traits,” said Jared Roskamp, BASF technical services representative in Missouri and southern Illinois. “One aspect that can make the decision easier is that most commonly available soybean trait packages are Liberty herbicide enabled.”

That is good news for farmers as Liberty herbicide from BASF provides excellent control of tough weeds, including glyphosate resistant broadleaves and grasses.²

Liberty herbicide does more than control tough weeds across today’s trait systems, it controls the resistant broadleaf and grass weeds glyphosate leaves behind. Particularly as resistant pigweed species become more and more of an issue, resistance management is paramount to staying ahead of the problem. This balance of control and flexibility makes Liberty herbicide a smart choice for soybean farmers, even more so when paired with a residual herbicide. Research shows that using more than two effective modes of action against a targeted weed species in each herbicide application can be much more effective in reducing the potential for resistance development compared to one mode of action.³

“Get season-long consistency and control when you start with a pre-emergent residual herbicide such as Zidua^® PRO herbicide followed by an application of Liberty herbicide post-emergence,” said Greif. “If you’re looking to keep tough pigweeds and other late-emerging weeds away until canopy closure, a post-emerge residual herbicide, such as Outlook^® herbicide or Zidua SC herbicide, should be tank-mixed with your Liberty herbicide application.”

You’ve trusted Liberty herbicide’s unique, proprietary formulation for nearly a quarter century. And while it cannot eliminate the challenges of selecting the right trait system for your farm, you can rest easy knowing that Liberty herbicide gives you the weed control you expect, the application-ease you need and the trait system compatibility you want. But most importantly, the peace-of-mind you deserve. 

^{1 Stratus Ag Research. Weed resistance tracking: glyphosate & PPO inhibitors. 2018.}

^{2 Results based on five years of trials where Liberty herbicide is applied according to S.T.O.P. Weeds with Liberty herbicide guidelines and as part of a complete weed control program where an effective residual product is used followed by Liberty herbicide.}

^{3 Evans, et. al., Managing the evolution of herbicide resistance, Pest Management Science, 2015; DOI 10.1002/ps.4009 (http://bulletin.ipm.illinois.edu/?p=3037)}

^{Always read and follow label directions. Alite 27®, Engenia®,  Liberty®, LibertyLink®, Outlook ® and Zidua® are registered trademarks of BASF. Engenia Herbicide and Alite 27 Herbicides are US EPA Restricted Use Pesticides. GT27® is a registered trademark of MS Technologies. Enlist® and the Enlist logo are registered trademarks of Dow AgroSciences. ENLIST® and ENLIST E3® are trademarks of Dow AgroSciences LLC. XTENDFLEX, XTENDIMAX, and VAPORGRIP are registered to Monsanto Technology LLC. Use of the XtendFlex trademark does not imply any affiliation with or endorsement by Monsanto Technology LLC. ©2022 BASF. All rights reserved.}