Balance Flexx Herbicide FAQ

Balance Flexx Product Overview

What is Balance Flexx herbicide?

Balance^® Flexx pre-emergence corn herbicide provides a flexible foundation for your herbicide program. It protects yields from the start with tough, broad-spectrum weed control on contact, and then reactivates to kill late-emerging weeds. Balance Flexx contains highly active Crop Safety Innovation (CSI™) Safener to provide powerful weed control in combination with excellent crop safety and application flexibility.

What crops can be treated with Balance Flexx?

Balance Flexx can be used in field (dent) corn grown for grain, silage or seed.

Balance Flexx Product Specs

How does reactivation happen in Balance Flexx?

Balance Flexx has the power of reactivation to control emerging weeds through canopy closure. Many herbicides cannot control late-emerging weeds, which compete with the crop. But with the ability to reactivate, Balance Flexx can be taken up by weed roots with just a half-inch or more of rain, bleaching and killing late-emerging weeds that are up to 2 inches tall. Balance Flexx controls weeds in corn throughout the early season with less impact from random and sporadic spring rain.

What is CSI Safener?

Crop Safety Innovation (CSI) Safener is an exclusive herbicide safener from Bayer. This safener has both soil and foliar uptake, which makes the safener active in both pre- and early post-applications. CSI allows Balance Flexx to be used on any soil with greater crop compatibility and allows application through V2 corn. CSI Safener changes the ability of the plant to better withstand herbicidal activity, which can lead to increased root growth and plant health.

Is the safener also active on other chemistries?

CSI Safener imparts additional safety and a reduction in symptoms from certain herbicides used in a tankmix or used postemergence in the early stages of corn growth. Crop recovery time from many symptoms breaking through the safener protection is reduced.

What is the Balance Flexx site of action?

As a Group 27 herbicide, Balance Flexx inhibits the 4-hydroxyphenylpyruvate dioxygenase (HPPD) enzyme in plants. This enzyme is key to the production of pigments and the development of chloroplasts in plant tissues. By inhibiting pigment and chloroplast biosynthesis, emerging plant tissue is bleached white to pale yellow.

What weeds does Balance Flexx control?

Balance Flexx manages most of the key weeds in corn, including glyphosate-resistant marestail, common ragweed, waterhemp and Palmer amaranth. It controls even tough grasses, such as woolly cupgrass, at the 5 to 6 fl oz/A rate.

How can I tell Balance Flexx is working on weeds?

Weeds are controlled so early they may never appear to emerge in the corn crop. Those weeds that do emerge most often acquire a bleached white appearance. Some weeds may only show part of the tissue as white and the rest can be chlorotic (yellow).

In a short period of time, the bleached tissue begins to die, first at the edges, and ultimately the weed is killed. These signs are likely to be observed following a half-inch or more of rain on weeds that emerged during a dry period following planting.

Balance Flexx Application and Use

When should I apply Balance Flexx?

Balance Flexx has a broad application window for a soil-applied herbicide. Applications in corn are made from burndown or pre-plant as far out as 30 days prior to planting through pre-emergence. If weather or time delays postpone applications, Balance Flexx can still be used through the 2-leaf collar growth stage (V2).

How should Balance Flexx be applied?

Balance Flexx is designed to be applied as a broadcast spray in water or fluid fertilizers as carriers. Balance Flexx can also be banded onto the soil. Applications to corn after emergence should be made in water only.

What is the use rate?

Balance Flexx is used at ounces per acre vs. pints or quarts used for other herbicides. The rate is selected based on soil characteristics and ranges from 3 fl oz/A on lighter soils with lower organic matter to 6 fl oz/A on most medium and fine textured soils. Low use rates mean less shipping, storage, handling and fewer jugs for growers. The Balance Flexx label provides complete rate selection details.

Does Balance Flexx need any adjuvants or surfactants?

Balance Flexx does not need adjuvants to provide outstanding soil-applied residual weed control in corn. However, adjuvants can enhance burndown of emerged weeds in reduced and no-till systems prior to crop emergence. Balance Flexx plus atrazine and crop oil is an outstanding burndown program prior to crop emergence.

What are the recommended tankmix partners?

Atrazine is a preferred tankmix partner with Balance Flexx, as the two herbicides work together to enhance weed control beyond the ability of the two components individually. Balance Flexx also has the versatility to help round out weed control with a grower's favorite amide – like a product from the Harness^® family, such as Harness Xtra 5.6 – and atrazine premix partner.

How long will the residual weed control last?

At labeled rates, Balance Flexx weed control lasts through canopy closure, effectively controlling target weeds through the season.

Balance Flexx Product Safety

Is carryover a concern with Balance Flexx?

Cereal grains, soybeans, sorghum, sweet corn, popcorn and other crops have not demonstrated unusual sensitivity in the season following Balance Flexx use.

Certain crops sensitive to Balance Flexx, such as sugar beets and certain dry bean species, have longer rotational intervals. These intervals vary depending on geographic location and precipitation accumulation following application. Plant-back intervals specific to various crops are outlined in detail on the Balance Flexx label.