Evaluation of generic and branded herbicides : technical report.

Details

• Creators:
  McFalls, Jett ; Yi, Young-Jae ; Li, Ming-Han ; Senseman, Scott ; Storey, Beverly
• Corporate Creators:
  Texas A&M Transportation Institute
• Corporate Contributors:
  Texas. Dept. of Transportation. Research and Technology Implementation Office ; United States. Federal Highway Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  Benefit Cost Analysis Environmental Impacts Evaluation Herbicides Literature Reviews Surveys
• Publication/ Report Number:
  FHWA/TX-15/0-6733-1
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  Texas
• Corporate Publisher:
  Texas A&M Transportation Institute
• Abstract:
  As with other generic brand products in the marketplace, generic herbicides often have a lower initial product cost than
  
  their brand-name counterparts. While the purchase price of herbicides is important to TxDOT, it is essential to look at
  
  more than just initial costs to determine whether generic or branded products is the best practice. One should consider
  
  safety, effectiveness, and application rates/procedures as well as product availability and equipment requirements. This
  
  project focused on three herbicides (Roundup PROMAX®, Escort® XP and Transline®) that TxDOT currently uses.
  
  The multi-disciplinary research team conducted a literature review, survey of practice, and cost/benefit analysis to
  
  determine whether generic herbicides meet equivalent performance, toxicology, environmental impact, and safety
  
  requirements as branded herbicides with significant cost-savings. This study found that generic products with the same
  
  or similar formulation often proved equivalent to branded products in human/wildlife effects, performance, and
  
  equipment requirements. However, the potential lack of quality control was identified as a concern because many of
  
  the generic herbicides were produced overseas. The uncertainties of inert ingredients also made assessments of risks
  
  and performance unclear. Meanwhile, the cost-saving benefit by using generic products was not proven, particularly
  
  for projects requiring a large amount of herbicide. The generic product may have a cheaper price but may not include
  
  the same amount and quality of active ingredient as the brand-name product. Therefore, to achieve an equivalent rate
  
  of active ingredient, more of the generic material may need to be used, thereby potentially eliminating whatever cost
  
  savings was realized at the initial purchase of the generic product. Other concerns identified with generic herbicides
  
  include the lack of availability, and lack of diverse discounts offered by branded herbicide manufacturers.
  
  
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  Project 0-6733
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:12ce8090cdd0a7ea2f10f4c005d5f993c7b74acb70199067cca96ba625c6534f
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/28772/dot_28772_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 1.82 MB ]