Benefits of Enlist E3™ Soybeans

By Ron Friesen

A new soybean trait to Western Canada will give growers another tool in the ongoing struggle against herbicide resistant weeds.

Enlist E3™ soybeans contain traits which provide a triple-stacked tolerance to glyphosate, 2,4-D choline, and glufosinate, offering growers three simultaneous modes of action for weed control in soybean crops.

Its release marks the latest development in dealing with resistant and hard-to-control weeds in soybeans.

The developers of the Enlist Weed Control System expect Enlist E3 will gain a significant market share in the years ahead because of its three-pronged approach to herbicide tolerance.

“We anticipate the category Enlist E3 is going to be huge in the market three to five years from now,” says Paul Foran, Traits Licensing Manager for Corteva Agriscience Canada.

Stacking modes of action is the direction in which the seed industry is moving to reduce the risk of herbicide resistant weeds, says Foran.

“As weed resistance becomes more of a challenge, growers are looking to use multiple modes of action.”

Foran says Enlist E3 will be introduced gradually in Manitoba this year because seed volumes are limited. A more general release is expected in 2021.

NorthStar Genetics will have Enlist E3 soybeans available for Canadian farmers.

Although registered in Canada for use on over 70 different weeds, Enlist Duo (which contains 2,4-D choline with Colex-D and glyphosate) is particularly suitable for controlling volunteer canola because of its multiple modes of action, says Brian Elliot, NorthStar Genetics District Sales Manager for Manitoba.

“It will be suited very well if you have extremely high pressure of volunteer Roundup Ready or Clearfield canola. If you have high wild buckwheat pressure, that’s another weed Enlist Duo is going to control really well,” says Elliot.

Elliot says the industry is trying to wean growers off continuous use of glyphosate because of a growing problem with glyphosate resistant weeds. Surveys by Manitoba Agriculture show volunteer canola to be one of the 10 most abundant weeds in all crops in the province and the worst in soybeans. The second biggest weed problem in soybeans is wild buckwheat.

For that reason, companies are starting to develop soybeans with multi-modes of action on herbicide tolerance. That’s where the Enlist Weed Control System comes in, says Elliot.

“The reason the industry’s going this way is because we’re seeing lots of glyphosate being used, so we want to stack our modes of action to reduce the risk of building up herbicide resistant weeds,” he says.

“With soybeans, what we’re trying to do is put more traits in, so it allows growers to use different modes of action to help reduce that risk.”

With its multiple modes of action, Enlist Duo can be sprayed both pre-emerge and post-emerge, providing a wider window of application to control weeds, says Elliot.

NorthStar Genetics has an Enlist E3 soybean variety (RM 00.2). It will be a gradual launch this year to get growers accustomed to the Enlist Weed Control System.

“We want growers to get familiar with the new weed control system. We want to make sure it gets introduced to the marketplace properly.”

Foran says Enlist E3 shouldn’t be seen as a silver bullet, but rather as a program approach to weed control.

“We’re saying this is a tool carrying multiple modes of action that allows growers to mix up chemistry to reduce the risk of developing herbicide resistant weeds.”

The transgenic soybean event in Enlist E3™ soybeans is jointly developed and owned by Dow AgroSciences LLC and M.S. Technologies, L.L.C. The Enlist weed control system is owned and developed by Dow AgroSciences LLC.