Herbicides increase crop yields by allowing weed control and harvest management. Glyphosate is the most widely-used herbicide active ingredient, with $11 billion spent annually on glyphosate-containing products applied to >350 million hectares worldwide, using about 8.6 billion kg of glyphosate. The herbicidal effectiveness of glyphosate can depend upon the time of day of spraying. Here, we show that the plant circadian clock regulates the effectiveness of glyphosate. We identify a daily and circadian rhythm in the inhibition of plant development by glyphosate, due to interaction between glyphosate activity, the circadian oscillator and potentially auxin signalling. We identify that the circadian clock controls the timing and extent of glyphosate-induced plant cell death. Furthermore, the clock controls a rhythm in the minimum effective dose of glyphosate. We propose the concept of agricultural chronotherapy, similar in principle to chronotherapy in medical practice. Our findings provide a platform to refine agrochemical use and development, conferring future economic and environmental benefits.

We used mixture design to predict rheological parameters, namely the storage and loss modulus $$G'$$ G ′ and $$G''$$ G ′ ′ and the critical stress $$\sigma _{c}$$ σ c , of mixtures of Laponite EP and bentonite clay. Laponite EP is an organically coated laponite displaying unusual rheological behaviour compared to its unmodified form. We examined the effect of salt (magnesium chloride) and of surfactant (Tween 20) varying the pH between 4 and 9. We found reliable complex models with significant higher order terms showing that the rheological behaviour of the gels was not a function of each single compound, but instead the result of multiple interactions. Such interactions had an antagonistic effect on $$G'$$ G ′ and $$G''$$ G ′ ′ . Stronger gels were found at low concentrations of magnesium chloride and Tween 20. The gel stability in response to stress increased with the amount of Tween 20, but decreased with magnesium chloride. Such distinct behaviour may be the result of interactions between the platelet charges and the different components, as well as salting in versus salting out effects. We identified the conditions for which the values of $$G'$$ G ′ were suitable for agrochemical products. The method presented here is a quick and reliable approach to formulate products with targeted rheological properties.