Program emphasizes the use of pre-emergents in weed management

In its 12th edition, the Productivity and Sustainability Increase Program (PAPS) promoted by Cocamar, focuses on the use of pre-emergent herbicides in weed management. This is because species that are difficult to control, such as buva, bitter grass and goosegrass, among others, have become increasingly complex and costly, season after season.

In PAPS, work is carried out on small areas of cooperative producers' properties, in all regions where the cooperative operates. And, this time, to help them understand this management, Cocamar's Technical Department implemented the adoption of pre-emergent herbicides in the current 2024/25 harvest, "an important tool mainly due to the emergence of several species of weeds resistant to post-emergence herbicides", says technical manager Rafael Furlanetto.

As he explains, one of the main advantages of pre-emergent herbicides is that they allow the crop of economic interest, in this case soybeans, to “emerge clean”, without interference from weeds, remembering that many of these herbicides have different mechanisms of action compared to the herbicides used in post-emergence, “being an excellent strategy for the management of resistant biotypes”.

The PAPS work is conducted by agricultural engineers who work with grains in the cooperative's units, totaling more than 150 field projects. To this end, the entire team participated in training with researcher Dr. Fernando Adegas, from Embrapa Soja.

When identifying the cooperative partner in the program, the agronomist surveys and diagnoses the main species of weeds and proposes the best herbicide for the situation.

The work also consists of evaluating the effectiveness of the product using the square inventory method, demonstrating the results of this management in practice. At the end of the project, field days are organized to share the results with other cooperative members in the region.

According to Renato Watanabe, technical executive manager at Cocamar, “the Field Day is the materialization of all this work.” PAPS, he explains, follows its own methodology where it is possible, through photos, data and numbers, to show the benefits of using pre-emergents. “We also have the opportunity to share the information generated by our agronomists with other producers in the region.”

The theme of PAPS 2024/25 addresses one of the issues that has been treated with great importance within the cooperative: the seeds of weeds considered quarantine or toxic. Starting in the second half of 2020, the Ministry of Agriculture and Livestock (Mapa) began receiving notifications sent by the authorities of China, the main importing country, about the occurrence of non-conformities in batches of soybeans exported by Brazil, due to the detection, in the cargo, of weed seeds, considered quarantine pests in that country.