With a restart of the sugar industry in Ireland still on the cards, potential beet growers will be interested in a new weed control technology for the crop. This was developed by sugarbeet breeder KWS Saat SE and Bayer CropScience and is projected to come to the market in 2018 under the name CONVISO® SMART.

These varieties will have a built-in tolerance to selected ALS herbicides such as sulfonylureas. This means that specific ALS herbicides can be applied to these varieties that will not damage the crop. The tolerance is supplied by a naturally occurring change in an enzyme in the plants. Bayer are to launch a new herbicide under the name CONVISO® to be used on such varieties.

So in the future, farmers will have the possibility of using simpler, more flexible herbicide programmes in the production of these specific beet varieties. Using CONVISO® SMART varieties will give growers the capability of controlling weeds in beet using smaller quantities of active ingredients and fewer applications per season.

CONVISO® SMART is described as a future-oriented technology based on conventionally bred sugarbeet varieties that are tolerant to ALS-inhibiting herbicides to provide efficient broad-spectrum weed control. The system offers full crop safety during plant growth.

While the option to use broad-spectrum ALS-inhibiting herbicides seems very appealing to prospective beet growers, the development of ALS resistance in a number of weed species now takes a little from its usefulness at farm level.

There was no indication as to whether this technology would be developed for fodder beet varieties, but this decision will hinge on an assessment of potential sales and cost benefit.