Digital Tool Provides a Quick Check on Herbicide Mix Efficacy

WSSA member scientists have helped streamline tank-mix herbicide decision making

WESTMINSTER, Colo., May 28, 2026 /PRNewswire/ -- Two Weed Science Society of America (WSSA) member scientists have helped create a digital tool to enable farmers to quickly assess their herbicide tank-mix efficacy this spray season. The Check My Herbicide Plan tool is available on the Getting Rid Of Weeds (GROW) website, providing instant feedback on planned herbicide programs for burndown, preemergence and postemergence herbicide applications in corn, cotton and soybeans. The tool also calculates and shares how many effective modes of action a planned herbicide program includes and how effective the herbicides in that plan are for the targeted weed populations.

"The decision-making process to determine herbicide effectiveness is often a cumbersome, complicated and tedious chore," says tool developer, Michael Flessner, Ph.D., Virginia Tech Professor and Extension Weed Science Specialist. "Now, the tool helps kickstarts that process, in a more simplified and streamlined way. In addition, herbicide-resistant weed populations in your fields can sneakily undercut the number of effective active ingredients in your tank mix, and this tool helps alert you to that possibility and suggest more efficient alternatives."

Flessner and Muthukumar Bagavathiannan, Ph.D., Texas A&M University Agronomy Professor, co-developed the tool with input from WSSA, the Herbicide Resistance Action Committee (HRAC), and initial development by Quacito LLC. Both Flessner and Bagavathiannan are active WSSA-member scientists.

"The new tool is meant to be a starting point for farmers and crop advisors to quickly evaluate their proposed herbicide programs and then use that information to work with trusted regional experts to build more robust herbicide programs," points out Bagavathiannan. "It's especially helpful to caution you when your herbicide program is likely to prove ineffective, so that you can make the necessary adjustments prior to following through on your final program."

If the tool uncovers inefficiencies in your proposed herbicide program, GROW has a variety of informative webpages to help. These include the Herbicide Management page, the Basics of Herbicide Resistance page, and How to Manage Herbicide Resistance with IWM page.

The tool is still under active development, as both Flessner and Bagavathiannan note, and the GROW team welcomes feedback from WSSA members scientists and the public via the tool's Contact Us page. For more information on how to use the new tool, visit this GROW news article and/or this GROW How-To Video.

To learn more about WSSA and its Herbicide Resistance Education Committee activities, visit: this webpage.

About the Weed Science Society of America 
The Weed Science Society of America is a nonprofit scientific society, founded in 1956, to encourage and facilitate the development of knowledge concerning weeds and their impact on the environment. The Society promotes research, education and extension outreach activities related to weeds, provides science-based information to the public and policy makers, fosters awareness of weeds and their impact on managed and natural ecosystems, and strengthens cooperation among weed science organizations across the nation and around the world. For more information, visit www.wssa.net.

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SOURCE Weed Science Society of America