Common mistakes include spraying at the wrong growth stage of the crop, overlapping spray patterns, or spraying directly into the whorl of the corn plant. Environment-Induced Herbicide Injury Figure 1. When growth regulator herbicides such as 2,4-D or Banvel are applied to corn under hot, humid conditions, crop injury often occurs. Such conditions increase the uptake of the herbicide by the corn plant. Under normal conditions, the corn plant is able to metabolize the absorbed herbicide, but the hot, humid environment causes changes in the plant which result in a crop injury.
Corn emerging under cool, wet conditions is at risk of injury from certain soil-applied herbicides.
This occurs because the young corn seedlings in prolonged contact with the soil may take up several times the normal amount of herbicide. At the same time, corn metabolism is slowed by cool temperatures, and the plant is unable to detoxify the herbicide absorbed. Corn leafing-out underground and improper leaf unfurling. Other shoot inhibiting herbicides such as Eradicane and Sutan have also injured corn under these growing conditions. In recent years, regional injury to the corn crop has also been linked to ALS-inhibitor herbicides.