The research of North Dakota State University graduate student Emma Burt paved the way for an emergency exemption that allowed sugarbeet producers to control water hemp in their 2021 crop with an herbicide previously used on soybeans.
Peters, whose role with Extension includes weed control in sugarbeets in North Dakota, Minnesota and eastern Montana, for the past nine years has worked to control pigweed species, including water hemp. Through Peters’ weed research, which involved screening herbicides used for non-sugarbeet crops, he learned that Ultra Blazer showed promise for water help control in sugarbeets.
Ultra Blazer was a popular herbicide for broadleaf weed control in soybeans during the 1990s, Peters said.
After screening Ultra Blazer for use in sugarbeets , Peters turned over the project to Burt, who studied and reported on the results of her project over Zoom meetings to sugarbeet cooperative representatives from across the United States for about a year.
During one of the Zoom meetings Burt had with the sugarbeet cooperatives, a cooperative administrator suggested that Ultra Blazer’s label should be approved for sugarbeets, Peters said.
In early 2021, Peters applied to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for an emergency exemption of Ultra Blazer, citing the poor control of other herbicides, which rely on rainfall for activation, during the 2020 dry growing season.