WTB Lasso herbicide

Monsanto Lariat is also alachlor (along w/ some atrazine).

Alachlor is restricted use only, though, requires a valid applicator's permit so wouldn't be able to purchase it, even if found some in stock (which is highly ulikely as it's been 3 yr or so).

Syngenta DualGold is similar w/ metolachlor as primary active ingredient but it, too, is RUO. Unless you can find a local buddy w/ applicator's license/permit...

What are you trying to control; maybe can provide some other alternatives that aren't all on the restricted list.

Thanks for the reply. Can't have the Atrazine in there.

I have a restricted use applicator's licence.

Need to find the real thing, there has GOT to be some unsold inventory sitting on a shelf someplace. Lasso was sold as Intrro up to last season ( got some last year with no warning they were dropping it)

Karl

I'd guess that was the last of previous stock sort of deal then -- Lasso got clobbered when Monsanto lost the suit in France back in '12.

I'll check w/ Equity here in town and see but doubt it's likely; stuff's just too costly for them to hold inventory over about what goes in the next couple of months or less.

What's A&M say is the current recommendation for the application?

Karl, actually INTRRO is still on the Monsanto product list so local ag distributor should be able to get it for you...

Is Monsanto responsive if you call them up, explain the situation you've got, and ask for recommendations?

(The notion of actually ASKING the manufacturer for recommendations is alien to me, because, well, I'm smarter than everyone else on earth. But sometimes it's proven useful.)

I make my living calling manufacturers and asking for info. It's painless.

The trick is to get to the right person. For that, I'm not giving up my secrets.

BTW, I have a NJ Non-commercial Certified Applicator license, and, in this state, I'm allowed to use ANY chemical the commercial applicators can use. I just can't charge for using it, sell it, etc.

The big problem I have is that the first layer of "help" is always the idiots who are only trained to help idiots. And saying "excuse me, could you transfer this call to someone competent" doesn't usually get much traction.

OK, try this: "I have an engineering (or science, or highly technical) question. Have I reached the right person to answer it? (of..."Would you please pass me on to the (technical, engineering, science) person who would be most qualified to answer it?"

When you ask them up front if they're the right person to answer a "highly technical" question, that usually gets you forwarded to an engineering dept., etc Then you ask again, but this time the crucial question is something like, "I have a technical question about [name the chemical of your choice]. Are you the right person to ask?"

That kind of questioning usually intimidates them a bit more than asking open-ended questions. If you announce up front that you need an answer to something "highly technical" (whether it really is or not), they'll often duck out so as not to appear ignorant.

Good luck. Like most things, you get better wih practice.

On 08/14/2014 10:00 AM, dpb wrote: ...

...

In stock probably relies on being in bean country w/ grassy weeds -- we grow neither beans nor corn and aren't generally troubled too much w/ grassy weeds so personally never used Lasso or the ilk...quite a bit of irrigated corn around the area; but only a few beans so it's not a big area item either...

Yeah, that never worked for me, either. I usually try to request their super- (or stupid-) visor before they get into too much of the same old crap. The phrases "may I speak to a supervisor" (not your supervisor, which makes it personal) and/or "please escalate this call" usually work the quickest without the panties of the said moron-helpers getting too bunched.

Second best is a highly technical email which is totally confusing to a moron-helper and is usually escalated without delay.

Engineer I worked with back in the 80s had a little rant about all the things he was *not* taught in college. How to pry information out of a vendor was top of the list.

My SIL is a head bean counter for Monsanto. She put me in touch with the marketing director. I've had three emails with him. They have no inventory for Lasso, intrro, or Micro-tech (all the same thing) in this country.

My only chance is unsold inventory at one of the thousands of suppliers in the country. I KNOW its out there. We're beating the brush trying to shake it down.

Karl

Would you call your suppliers and see if they have some Lasso, Intrro or Micro-tech please?

Karl

I shall do so. I don't have any real "suppliers" (I got the license on the recommendation of a state university pomologist, when I asked for help in caring for my new peach tree ), but I know a couple of ag suppliers to call.

I'll get to it tomorrow.

Ed

In chemistry there was a semester course on how to find information, mainly in the literature, but we also discovered how to appear sufficiently credible for vendors to mail us data sheets and free samples. I sent for a sample of raw latex rubber and received a pillow-sized slab of it, MUCH more than I expected. I was already too notorious to risk ordering anything dangerous.

Later I found that rubber vacuum tubing can be heated to the temperature of molten solder (as an indicator) and molded under moderate pressure.

In electronics the code word for a highly technical question is "applications", but I suppose it's different in the herbicide business.

-jsw

No luck so far, Karl. The ag-supply business seems to have consolidated in NJ since I last looked. I have a call in to our top county extension service expert on herbicides, to see if people even use alachlor-based herbicides here these days. I don't see any prohibitions, and I see that Lasso was popular here at one time.

I'll let you know.

Our top herbicide guy says that Monsanto has pulled the alachlor-based products off the market here. He's not sure why; it apparently was a Monsanto decision, not an agency order.

It's been a while and he's pretty certain there isn't any lurking in warehouses.

On 08/15/2014 12:16 PM, Ed Huntress wrote: ...

Lot had to do w/ the French lawsuit/conviction for "poisoning" a French farmer who obviously didn't pay much attention to usage cautions and inhaled sufficiently high concentrations of vapor to cause some neurological damage. Jury, at least, found Monsanto culpable, similar to Hitachi in the NJ case of the guy who managed with effort and ignoring virtually every precaution of ordinary sense to lose a finger in one of their contractor saws. Anyway, that was back in early '12 and EU also has banned alachlor since (or concurrent with). It (alachlor has generally fallen out of favor even if not on the banned list by EPA. The reasons other than potential liability if any I'm not aware of; as noted earlier it's one we never used so don't know too much about it.

I think it would be more fruitful for Karl to give up the quest for unobtanium and ask local extension agent for current recommendation for the application...or call up A&M directly and converse w/ one of their guys if it's an unusual situation.

That's exactly what our herbicide expert said -- ask his local extension agent. Several county extension agents, in different counties, told me to call this particular guy (he's the agent in Hunterdon County, if any NJ folks want to know).

I would have passed on that recommendation but this isn't my subject area and I don't want to presume what options Karl has considered.