With more than 40 different glyphosate compounds on the market this year, it’s not always easy to decipher the critical differences.

1. Start With The Label. While the active ingredient of glyphosate is placed in a variety of salts that serves as dissolving agents, Chris Boerboom says you need to remember that it’s not the salts that kill the weeds found in your no-tilled fields. As a result, the University of Wisconsin weed scientist says, you must focus on the label information regarding the acid equivalent per gallon of product in determining the cost per pound along with figuring out the per-acre cost of using each product. But to make life simpler, there is only one method for determining the per-acre cost of any of these glyphosate products.

2. What Price Differences Mean. With brands of glyphosate selling for anywhere from $15 to $30 per gallon, it’s easy to convince yourself that there is a huge price difference between products. But as Boerboom points out, an examination of the contents shown on two labels reveals that a $30-per-gallon product has 5 1/2 pounds of acid equivalent per gallon while a $16 gallon had only 3 pounds. When he converted the respective recommended application rates of 20 and 32 ounces per acre for both products to equalize the amount of acid equivalent, the differences weren’t so great. For the $30 per gallon product, there was a $5.45 per acre cost compared to $5.33 for the $16 product.

3. Weed Height Does Matter. Besides herbicide…