Doncaster Borough Council say they are saving at least £186,000 a year on weed control after switching to the use of Rigby Taylor’s Chikara residual herbicide.

The council say that use of the product, used as a tank mix in conjunction with a glyphosate, is not only producing financial savings on their treatment of 100 hectares of vegetation management, but it has also eliminated the use of strimmers and their associated health and safety issues of White Finger (HAVs).

Charged with vegetation management over an area of 100 hectares, council operators formerly combined Controlled Droplet Application (CDA) of glyphosate with the regular use of strimmers, a regime that was costing £225,000 per annum.

The problems identified with these methods involved repeated visits to treat the areas, as well as the maintenance and replacement of strimmers plus the White Finger issues.

Working with Rigby Taylor the council looked at the alternatives with the objective of eliminating strimmers. It concluded that the use of Chikara as a tank mix with Trustee (a clean label glyphosate), would provide major cost benefits.

Chikara is a post-emergence herbicide with a high level of residual activity and combined with the clean label glyphosate, weeds that are present at the time of application are killed. Also, the product’s long-term residual activity prevents the germination of seeds from those weeds and others still in the soil.

The result is that the council has slashed its total annual cost of vegetation control to just £39,000 a year.