R eading a herbicide label may be a critical first step in deciding what kind of herbicide adjuvant to use, but it probably won't alleviate the confusion you feel when faced with all the different products within a category. Adjuvant manufacturers are looking at even more ways to use crop-based materials in their products. Product performance is responsible for some of the interest, but the opportunity to market a product to farmers that is based on a farm product is also a factor in the proliferation of crop-based adjuvants. That's become a big factor in our marketing.
Growers like to use adjuvants that are based on the products they sell.
A few herbicide labels exclude VOCs, and you need to read labels carefully to know where a VOC is allowed. The methylation helps boost penetration of the herbicide through the waxy coatings of weed leaves, especially under dry weather conditions. Now a number of adjuvant suppliers have their own methylated seed oils. Some are even marketing combinations of MSOs and other ingredients that simplify your mixing process for situations when you need to be using more than one type of adjuvant. For instance, Helena makes a product called Dyne-Amic, a combination of MSO and organosilicone surfactant.