Thinking outside of the box, Nevin Lawrence, Nebraska Extension Weed Management Specialist, has been able to find solutions for the aggressive weed Palmer amaranth, Amaranthus palmeri, for sugar beet growers in Nebraska. For his work and efforts in providing data to support an emergency use label for Goltix to control Palmer amaranth in sugar beets, Western Sugar recognized him with a plaque on March 24 at the Nebraska Beet Growers Association meeting.
Palmer amaranth grows in cropland where the ground is often disturbed, can emerge throughout the entire growing season, is more competitive than other pigweed species and is resistant to several herbicide modes-of-action across the United States. Lawrence had been working on the management of Palmer amaranth for several years when, in 2018, ADAMA, a crop production company, sent Lawrence and other weed scientists samples of their herbicide Goltix.
“They did a trial with me and every other sugar beet weed scientist in the country to look at it. The other scientists saw no value, and I tested it, and it was very, very good on Palmer amaranth,” Lawrence said. Since ADAMA had initially decided against continuing research on the product in the states, he approached Western Sugar Cooperative, headquartered in Denver, Colo., with locations in Nebraska, Colorado, Montana and Wyoming, for research funding. He told Western Sugar the weed was only going to get worse, and their growers would need a solution. They began working together, with Western Sugar providing funding and Lawrence carrying out experiments.
The herbicide was meant to be applied post-application, once the beets and Palmer amaranth are out of the ground. “Lawrence found this was not an effective use of the product. He understood our biggest area of concern was getting control of the Palmer when the beets were just emerging in the early spring at planting. So, he took it upon himself to test the product as a pre-emergence product, and it worked beautifully,” said Rebecca Larson, Western Sugar's chief scientist. The herbicide controlled the weed for a reasonable amount of time until it was safe for growers to apply additional lay-by herbicides, and it didn’t hurt the sugar beets.
“Biologically, sugar beets are extremely sensitive to most herbicides,” Lawrence said. “Compared to other crops grown in Nebraska or elsewhere, sugar beet just has a lot fewer options available. And as Palmer amaranth is resistant to the herbicides currently used in sugar beet, finding another option was essential.”
Lawrence was also instrumental in helping Western Sugar work with the state of Nebraska and the Environmental Protection Agency to get Goltix approved for sugar beet growers to use. “The emergency approval we got was the first of its kind for the EPA, and it was largely thanks to the extensive data collected by Nevin about crop safety and efficacy as well as the manufacturer’s extensive human health and environmental safety data,” Larson said. “The level of commitment and ingenuity is quite unique to Nevin, and he deserves a huge debt of gratitude. Roughly half of our growers in 2024 used this newly approved herbicide, and we estimate it added two tons to the acre in yield, which is more than $8 million in revenue for our growers. If we had any significant replant, that number would have been even higher. I would suspect roughly 75 percent of our farmers will use this tool in Nebraska and Colorado in 2025.”
