With the current high prices of agricultural inputs, companies need to think about maximization, a very strict management of the use of these products, in order to obtain the best results in the fight against pests, diseases and weeds in sugarcane fields.

In the case of weed control, to avoid errors in recommendations and waste of applied products, it is necessary to carry out a detailed technical analysis of the situation to correctly direct the pesticides to the right time, place and targets.

One of the biggest difficulties that producers face to combat these problems is to manage all the weed control activities in the extensive sugarcane plantations. Invasives spread with astonishing speed and are proving increasingly aggressive and adapted to different production environments. At the slightest carelessness, they compete with sugarcane, getting to steal more than half of the production in just a few months of weed competition.

Producers, in general, face this serious problem without much organization, and what is observed is despair when the situation becomes critical in the hot and humid period of the year. Just don't follow the crop closely and that's it, the producer is surprised by vigorous infestations of weeds that quickly suffocate the new shoots, competing for water, light and nutrients. The result of this problem is a drop in productivity.

In large areas of sugarcane, such as the mills, which cultivate thousands of hectares with cane fields in different stages of development spread all over the place, there is a great diversity and intensity of weeds. Managing this entire area is not an easy task. Weed control requires a lot of activity and vigilance from technicians throughout the year, under the action of several factors that vary according to a very important component: climate change in the four seasons of the year.

In addition to climatic factors, it is also important to know the right time to carry out weed surveys and, when recommending herbicides, consider which weed species are occurring, the intensity of infestation in the area, in addition to the stage of development of the weed. cane. The straw layer, clay content and organic matter in the soils are also important, as they help in determining the dosages of pesticides. This is all, not to mention the spray system that will be used.

To complete the concerns of those responsible for weed control, they still have to consider the characteristics of the herbicides, such as the residual period (which is usually not very long), the mode of action on the different weeds, the solubility in the soil, the mode of action on the invaders, etc. All this needs to be known before recommending products.

In addition to all this procedure, it is still necessary to program the surveys in the inspection visits and in the operations carried out before, during and after the treatments performed. In this activity, there is a great variability of situations and dozens of interactions between interfering factors, environment and products applied to each treatment performed, which generate hundreds of information. What to do with this huge volume of data collected and stored daily? It is humanly impossible to process this information, but we need it to answer many important questions, such as:

What were the best products at different times of the year? What was the residual period of each product and its mixtures? What were the main weeds controlled? What were the best pre-emergent products in the sugarcane plant? And in the clogs? What were the best herbicides for post-emergence control? And the applications in Pre-Planting Incorporated? Were they effective? Was there a need for transfers or collection? What products should we put in the shopping portfolio?

What is the weed distribution in the crop (mapping)? What is the best survey method to determine the occurrence of weeds and the performance of the herbicides used? How can we organize ourselves to not delay any withdrawals? What are the management reports we need to carry out an adequate management? How to group data to make herbicide recommendations? How to organize Work Order dynamics? What lessons can we learn from the control being done? Where do we still need to improve?

These and other questions need to be part of the daily routine of cultural dealings and lead this practice to a permanent improvement. As you can see, this is an activity that requires much more than a simple product recommendation. Today, we have at least 50 molecules of herbicide registered for sugarcane on the market, each with its characteristics and positioning specifications, in addition to countless mixtures of these products. How to manage all this? How to make a management based on continuous improvement of processes and knowledge? In the work to combat weeds, we have several stages that need to be organized and punctually followed up.

It is necessary to make an appointment with surveys on pre-established dates to collect information on pre and post application of herbicides and, mainly, to set up an action routine. In a large crop, there will be, at the same time under surveillance, sugarcane plantations at different stages of the crop that will require frequent field surveys, consultations of stored data and product stocks.

With organization, it is possible to know, at all times, the real situation of the bush throughout the crop and improve the programming of services, especially in the areas of renovation (a good moment for “ depragueamento ”). The large amount of data collected needs to be piped to the file correct, processed with agility and made available when the O.S. is issued, with the recommendations of the appropriate herbicides for each situation.

There are several phases and field surveys that must be carried out before and after herbicide applications. For each phase, reports with assessment of the situation need to be issued, with the most different portraits of the situation of combating the bush. All this flow of data and services must follow a well-defined methodology and pre-established deadlines for inspection visits. Only then will managers have the entire crop under control at any time of the year.

The solution is the use of specialist software that facilitates and processes this entire range of information arising daily from the crop. We already have tools available on the market with data processing algorithms, which issue the right reports for the management of this activity. These software are being made available to the largest sugarcane producers, cooperatives and, mainly, to the mills that have large extensions of areas to be treated.

Therefore, using all these concepts and strategies in the management of the fight against weeds, it will be possible to maximize the significant investments made , extract the best from the herbicides applied, continuously gain information about their performance, and in this way, protect the sugarcane fields to achieve the best productivity.