New Fungicide Promises Better Late Blight Control for Potatoes

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Potato growers have a new weapon in their fight against late blight, the crop’s most devastating fungal disease.

Last month, Syngenta Canada launched Orondis Ultra, a new fungicide that promises to deliver up to 21 days of residual control for late blight in potatoes. The product is registered for control of oomycete diseases caused by downy mildews and phytophthora species in potatoes and vegetables.

Brady Code, Syngenta’s Eastern Technical Lead tells Real Agriculture that Orondis Ultra gives growers both preventative and residual control at lower use rates than other fungicides. Code says longer residual control will allow producers to reduce the number of fungicide applications required to control late blight during the growing season. The longer control window also gives growers more flexibility in timing applications.

Code notes that growers typically build blight protection programs with products that offer three to ten days of control. With 21 days of residual control, he explains that growers can increase the intervals between fungicide applications and potentially reduce the number of applications required to protect the plant against late blight.

For longer-season potato varieties, Code notes that growers can achieve effective control with two applications of Orondis Ultra – one early season application when the plants are 12 to 15 inches tall and a second application three weeks prior to harvest.

Orondis Ultra is a combination of the newly registered active ingredient, oxathiapiprolin, which belongs to the piperidinyl-thiazole-isoxazolines (Group U15) class of fungicides, and mandipropamid (Group 40).

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