Soybean School: Liberty Link finding a fit in resistance management

Look through many soybean seed catalogues and you’ll find an ‘LL’ in the trait category surrounded by a plethora of ‘RR2Y’ and ‘RR2Xtend’ abbreviations, noting the last two versions of Roundup Ready seed technology.

The number of  Liberty Link (LL) herbicide system varieties are few compared to the massive Roundup Ready seed footprint, but the technology still has a strong role to play for growers looking for weed control flexibility, including options to tackle tough-to-control and herbicide-resistant weeds.

At the recent SouthWest Agricultural Conference, RealAgiculture’s Bernard Tobin caught up with Pride Seeds agronomist Aaron Stevanus and BASF technical development manager Rob Miller to talk about how and where Liberty Link varieties might fit on your farm.

In this Soybean School episode, Stevanus notes that Liberty Link offers growers a different stewardship option, allowing them to rotate chemistries and help keep resistant weeds out of their fields. Pride offers four varieties that span the full majority range in Ontario. Stevanus notes that he grew Liberty Link soys on his home farm in 2018 to help clean up some glyphosate-resistant Canada fleabane.

Liberty Link technology was acquired by BASF in 2018 as an off-shoot of the Bayer-Monsanto merger. Miller notes that Liberty 200 is applied to varieties in Eastern Canada and works best when applied to small, actively growing weeds, including waterhemp, which has confirmed resistance to four herbicide groups in Ontario. He offers a range of application tips and stresses the importance of a soil-applied residual herbicide in conjunction with the Liberty program. “Whether you have resistant weeds or not, that will set you up for success,” says Miller.

Wake up with RealAgriculture

Subscribe to our daily newsletters to keep you up-to-date with our latest coverage every morning.

Wake up with RealAgriculture