Full Load Complete: AMS Replacement, Volatility Reduction, Surfactant
Ammonium Sulfate (AMS) has been the mainstay adjuvant for glyphosate for decades. AMS is generally considered a hard water treatment. When dissolved into water AMS dissolves into the ammonium cation and the sulfate dianion. The general theory is that the sulfate dianion surrounds the hard water cation, keeping the hard water cations from forming insoluble salts with glyphosate and inactivating glyphosate as a herbicide. Ammonium is a nitrogen source and all plants like nitrogen.
Non Ionic Surfactant (NIS) is also a normal additive for glyphosate applications. Surfactants reduce the surface tension of the spray droplet increasing contact area on the leaf surface, thereby increasing the amount of herbicide penetrating into the plant.
Most glyphosate applications are sprayed with 8.5lbs to 17lbs of AMS per 100 gallons of spray mix plus 1qt to 2qts per 100 gallons of NIS.
It should be noted that the most consistently efficacious surfactant for glyphosate is tallow amine. Tallow amine surfactant based products are not readily available, likely due to the relatively high cost of tallow amine surfactants.
Full Load™ spray adjuvant is AgraSyst’s hard water scavenger system formulated into a surfactant blend. One quart of Full Load™ ties up hard water cations at a rate equivalent to or better than 17lbs of AMS plus 1 quart of surfactant, including tallow amine—glyphosate’s favorite surfactant.
Full Load Complete™ combines AgraSyst’s Hard Water Scavenger system with AgraSyst’s drift reduction technology and our new volatility reduction technology into one Fully Loaded Surfactant product. It was supposed to be impossible, but we did not know that, so we did it anyway.
Of course the most important issue is that Full Load Complete™ still out performs AMS+NIS for glyphosate enhancement. Drift and volatility reduction are bonuses.
Full Load Complete™ is formulated as a surfactant blend with a built-in hard water scavenger system. This makes Full Load Complete™ a perfect product for the enhancement of activity for a lot of herbicide chemistries that need a NIS surfactant but are also subject to hard water tie up such as dicamba and 2,4-D. The activity increases seen with Full Load Complete™ with 2,4-D and dicamba as compared to AMS+NIS as seen in the chart below.
Full Load Complete™ works very well with the glyphosate + dicamba tank mixes (Figure 3).
Full Load Complete 2qts/100 + WeatherMAX+Clarity
Figure 3. Better Control with Full Load COMPLETE Spray Adjuvant.
AMS 17lbs/100+NIS 1qt/100 + WeatherMAX+Clarity
Less Control when AMS+NIS were the Spray Additives. Sow Thistle an Issue.
Untreated
Full Load Complete’s™ field efficacy for glyphosate and glyphosate + dicamba over several trials seen below.
The amazing thing about Full Load Complete™ is it has volatility reduction technology inside the formulation. The 2qts/100 gallons of spray solution rate supplies more hard water protection than 17lbs of AMS, a better surfactant blend than NIS and the ability to reduce dicamba vapors by 30%-50% (Figure 4, 5 & 6).
Full Load Complete + Clarity Box Test
Figure 4. Dicamba Vapor Damage from a Spray Solution of Clarity and Full Load Complete (0.5%v/v)
Clarity Box Test
Figure 4. Dicamba Vapor Damage From a Spray Solution of Clarity
Untreated Check
Figure 4.
Figure 5. The Average Reduction in Dicamba Vapor Injury when Full Load Complete™ was added to the Spray Solution and placed Adjacent to Soybean Bioassay in a Covered Box in the Greenhouse. The Average Percentage injury is from the Bioassays of over 20 of these tests.
Full Load Complete™ works with a variety of chemistries. It also works with any dicamba formulation. See below (Figure 6) how Full Load Complete™ worked with 2,4-D amine salt formulations. Full Load Complete™ will also work with any 2,4-D formulation. It should be noted that Full Load Complete™ will work with ester formulations of 2,4-D. These ester formulations are still more volatile than the amine salt formulations. The volatility reductions are relative to the volatility of the active ingredient.
Figure 6. Full Load Complete™ effect on Vapor Damage Caused by 2,4-D DMA salt placed in Greenhouse Box Tests. Average Over 20 Tests.
Full Load Complete™ was designed and developed for spray applications where the spray droplet size is managed to provide the best efficacy. Droplets in the size range of 200 microns to 400 microns. Full Load Complete™ is a very good drift reduction agent (Figure 7). It does not pass the EPA’s model using nozzles that produce very large spray droplets as required by the Engenia and XtendiMAX labels. However, it does a superb job at drift reduction. Full Load Complete™ does not have the pump shearing issues that many of the Engenia and XtendiMAX labeled DRAs have and continues to work through the complete spray job. (Figure 7 & 8).
Figure 7.
Figure 8. Full Load Complete™ Increased the Size of the Spray Droplets of 2,4-D DMA Salt Application Across the Spectrum as Compared to EnlistDuo in Wind Tunnel Experiments.
Of course, greenhouse and wind tunnel experiments do not mean much if the results are not translatable to what happens in the field. Full Load Complete™ worked very well in the field. It reduced the severity of dicamba vapor damage an average of 77%. It reduced the distance that dicamba vapor damage could be seen by 74%. Average “off target” dicamba movement injury severity was reduced an average of 50% with Full Load Complete™ added to the spray mix at 2qts/100. The average distance of “off target” movement was reduced by 43% (Figure 9).
Figure 9.
Full Load Complete™ represents the ultimate in adjuvant technology. It has fantastic efficacy. It resolves any hard water issues. It has a great surfactant blend so that it performs over multiple chemistries, weeds and environmental conditions. It has excellent drift reduction properties and contains reduced volatility technology—all in one jug.