BASF products still best for beating Septoria

Farmers have been delivered good news about disease control on their number one cereal crop - winter wheat - in a recent report issued by the HGCA.

The report on wheat disease management has shown that, despite the spread of fungicide resistance in the region’s main cereal disease - Septoria tritici, strobilurin fungicides in mixture with triazoles still give good disease control and high yield responses.

While it is acknowledged that most Septoria tritici control comes from the triazole component, strobilurin fungicides can still enhance disease control and yield even where resistance to fungicides is high, the report says.

In fact, trial results show that the combination of a triazole and a strobilurin gives significantly better disease control and yield response than either component used on its own.

In the report, the strobilurin fungicides with the best ratings for 2004 for fungicide activity are F 500 (pyraclostrobin), Landmark (kresoxim-methyl + epoxiconazole) and Swing Gold (dimoxystrobin + epoxiconazole), and the best triazole is Opus (epoxiconazole), all from BASF.

Commenting on the report, Tony Grayburn, Cereal Fungicides product manager for BASF said: “This is excellent news for cereal growers. They can be assured ahead of the up-coming spray season that BASF strobilurins are still highly cost effective when used in conjunction with a BASF triazole (epoxiconazole, metconazole, and fluquinazole), and they have a good range of products to choose from.”