One of the biggest concerns about disease control is the development of resistance to commonly used fungicides. Fortunately though, the major pesticide companies are still devoted to dealing with this issue and are launching new products. There are typically two approaches to developing new fungicides which stave off resistance. One method of course is to invent a totally new active ingredient with a new mode of activity. The other is to mix two actives which have different modes of action to basically hit the pathogen from two different directions. The PMRA has recently approved the registration of each of these types.
The first, Zampro Fungicide from BASF, contains a new active ingredient Ametoctradin (Group 45) plus the existing active Dimethomorph (Group 40). Zampro is registered on a wide range of vegetable crops plus grapes and tomatoes for control of downy mildews and certain blights.
The second product is Syngenta’s Quadris Top, which is a premix of Quadris (Group 11) and difenoconazole (Group 3), both existing fungicides. Like Zampro, Quadris Top is registered on a wide range of vegetables, field peas, potatoes, and sugarbeets for the control of many of the most common disease problems.
Each of these new products promises to deliver good disease control while offering a reasonable disease resistance management strategy. Still, the chemical in the jug is only one part of resistance management, and growers must continue to be vigilant about crop and product rotation, sound monitoring techniques, and good sanitation.
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