Weeds have been a problem since cultivation of the crop began. Control consisted mainly of plowing and hand hoeing until advent of the surface applied preemergence herbicides which occurred in the late 1940's and 1950's.

In the 1960's with the discovery and rapid, widespread adoption of the incorporated grass herbicide TREFLAN, and other ppi materials which followed, grass weeds became much less of a problem. However, continued use of the surface applied preemergence and preplant incorporated herbicides has led, particularly in the traditionally rain-grown cotton areas, to increasingly difficult broadleaf weed control problems,

To add to the problem, few new herbicides with broadleaf weed control activity have been introduced for cotton since the mid-1970's. Many of the materials upon which we rely heavily are twenty years old.