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Generic or name-brand herbicides, is there a difference?

published: February 29th 2008

FORT WORTH, Texas, Feb. 14, 2008—Participants in Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association’s 2008 School For Successful Ranching will have the opportunity to join the great debate and decide for themselves what’s in a name when it comes to generic versus name-brand herbicides.

Dr. Wayne Hanselka, professor of ecosystem science and management at Texas A&M University and range specialist with Texas AgriLife Extension Service, will lead a session on herbicides designed and labeled for rangeland use at the school, to be held March 14-15 at the American Bank Center in Corpus Christi.

Hanselka is quick to point out that, whether good or bad, a generic product is not necessarily a carbon copy of the original.

“Just because a [new] chemical has the same active ingredient as one we’ve had a long time, doesn’t mean it’s the same herbicide,” he says.

“First of all,” Hanselka explains, “the active ingredients are naturally important because that’s what works on the plant. But, how it’s put together and what the carriers are also contributes to the total package.

“It’s a synergistic effect. It’s not just the active ingredients. So, just because we’ve had a chemical that has been tried and true for years and a new one comes out with the exact concentration of active ingredients in it, that doesn’t mean it is the same thing.

“That raises questions on efficacy.”

Knowing there is no one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to rangeland herbicides, Hanselka will still focus on addressing as many issues as possible at the School for Successful Ranching.

We’ll take the various herbicides, particularly by mode of action — what I mean by that is we’ll start with the soil-applied herbicides, then go through what’s available, what their strong points are and just tell people the differences between, say, [what] Arsenal® will do and Velpar® will do.

“Then we’ll go into the basal or cut-stump efforts and talk about them. Then we’ll talk about the foliar and the various combinations that we can use. We’ll also have a section on weed control — the herbicides available there — and then we’ll end up with a little section on adjuvants and carriers... The blue dyes, the mentholated seed oil, etc.”

“[We hope to] clear up some of the confusion on names and formulations so that they can make better decisions on what to invest in,” he says.

This year marks TSCRA’s 14th annual School for Successful Ranching, a two-day program featuring three educational tracks — animal management, the business of ranching and range management. TSCRA has brought in experts from the Texas

AgriLife Extension Ser-vice, King Ranch Institute for Ranch Management, Welder Wildlife Founda-tion, NRCS and Oklahoma State University to lead the sessions.

Registration is $60 for TSCRA members or $100 for nonmembers and includes two hot meals and free admittance to the TSCRA Trade Show, featuring more than 150 exhibitors. Space is limited, so pre-registration is encouraged. For additional details including a complete schedule, or to register, visit www.texascattleraisers.org.

The School for Success-ful Ranching is held in conjunction with the 2008 TSCRA Annual Conven-tion and Trade Show, Brand the Future.

Texas and Southwest-ern Cattle Raisers Asso-ciation is a 130-year-old trade organization whose 15,000 members manage approximately 3.7 million cattle on 96.5 million acres of range and pasture land, primarily in Texas and Oklahoma. TSCRA provides law enforcement services, livestock inspection, legislative and regulatory advocacy and education opportunities for its members.