Understanding the factors that limit herbicide performance would allow selecting the appropriate time to spray the compounds, optimizing the dose applied, and reducing the production costs. The objective of this review was to synthesize the information available on the literature on the effect of the environmental conditions (air temperature, relative humidity, and irradiance) on the efficacy of the ACCase-inhibiting herbicides. Air temperature and relative humidity are the most important environmental variables altering the performance of these herbicides on weed control. Under natural conditions, these variables, along with irradiance, interact with one another, making it difficult to decide the best time to select herbicide application. Under controlled conditions, it is possible to identify the individual influence of each factor on herbicide efficacy. Increased relative humidity and air temperature increase the efficacy of ACCase-inhibitors to a certain extent, because of increased uptake and translocation of the herbicides by the plants. Light intensity, when increased, also provides these benefits, but sometimes shading provides better performance of these herbicides. To optimize the efficacy of ACCase-inhibitors on weed control, it is necessary to analyze the influence of each of the variables mentioned above.
environmental variables; air temperature; relative humidity; light