Chemical firm BASF has picked up federal registration for a new systemic fungicide it says will protect against fusarium head blight while offering “premium” leaf disease control.
The German company’s Canadian wing on Friday announced approval from Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) for Caramba, a triazole fungicide registered for use in wheat, barley, rye and oats crops.
Its active ingredient, metconazole, is a Group 3 fungicide with both “protective and curative” activity on foliar crop diseases, the company said.
“Fusarium is a dirty word for growers and they know the damage it can cause,” BASF Canada’s fungicide brand manager Mike Bakker said in the company’s release, adding that “growers finally have a product specifically developed to help them manage this disease in cereals.”
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With a product meant to manage fusarium head blight, growers can expect to benefit from improved yield and from reduced levels of deoxynivalenol (DON) contamination, protecting quality as well as value, Mississauga-based BASF Canada said.
Caramba’s label calls for application at 20 per cent flowering (GS 61-63) on wheat, oats and rye crops. In barley, it should be applied between full head emergence to up to three days after full emergence of main stem heads, the company said.
For a fungicide to be sprayed at flowering is “a bit later than most growers are used to, and it’s (a) small application window,” BASF’s fungicide marketing manager Wayne Barton told Grainews editor Lyndsey Smith in her blog Friday.
If farmers plan to use Caramba, the narrow application window calls for extra planning to ensure the application system, aerial or otherwise, is in place beforehand, Smith wrote.
But the product “could make a lot of cereal growers very happy this year given the wet, wet, wet conditions farmers are facing,” Smith added.
