ADAMA Australia has introduced two new fungicides to tackle diseases in all major broadacre crop types this season.
Fungicides portfolio manager Matt Sherriff said the arrival of Maxentis and Proviso fungicides would take the headache out of disease management for many canola and cereal growers.
Maxentis is a co-formulation of prothioconazole and azoxystrobin and can be applied safely at various crop stages and with a range of other crop protection and nutrition products with reduced risk of crop damage.
It is rapidly absorbed by leaves and controls key diseases, including seedling and upper canopy blackleg and sclerotinia in canola, as well as rusts, powdery mildew, septoria, yellow leaf spot, scald and ramularia in cereals.
It also features Australia's first registered claim for control of physiological leaf spot (PLS) in barley.
Proviso is a novel prothioconazole fungicide featuring ADAMA's Asorbital technology, which enables enhanced uptake and systemic activity for improved efficacy, compatibility and crop safety.
Proviso can be used in tank mixes with a range of other crop protection and nutrition products, controlling a broader range of diseases in canola and cereals, including fusarium head blight in wheat, and to assist disease management.
It can be applied as the first foliar application following the use of Succinate Dehydrogenase Inhibitor (SDHI) or strobilurin-based fungicides on seed or in-furrow.
Mr Sherriff said research confirmed Maxentis offered better crop safety than existing benchmark fungicides whether applied alone or in tank mixes, and it was a similar story for Proviso with its unique formulation.
"Growers will be aware of crop safety and mixing issues when tank mixing various crop protection and nutrition products," he said.
"Maxentis and Proviso are safer formulations for applications in mixtures, allowing growers to cover their crops in one pass.
"Compared with using other fungicides, they will have more flexibility than they have had before to go with various tank mixes from an early stage.''
He said Maxentis was one of the few fungicides registered for use in canola containing azoxystrobin and it could be included with top-up applications of herbicides like atrazine as early as the four to six-leaf crop growth stage, as could Proviso.
"This is when a lot of blackleg is coming in and developing resistance to both seed variety genetics and seed treatment fungicides, he said."
Maxentis can be applied through to the flag leaf stage in cereals.
Mr Sherriff said it would be particularly valuable as an alternative mode of action group in cases where SDHI fungicide already had been applied on seed or in-furrow.
In oats, he said the azoxystrobin component could offer potential greening benefits, while the fungicide's mixing capability and rapid absorption would be strongly welcomed.
Proviso was a more cost-effective and adaptable fungicide, he said, and could be applied with a host of tank mix partners to enhance its effectiveness.
He said even where resistance may be developing to any triazoles, prothioconazole was the most effective of these fungicides.
By using Proviso, growers could avoid paying for additional active ingredients that may be less effective, he said.
Maxentis and Proviso fungicides were recently included in 30 trials across the country, where they demonstrated their mixing capability with numerous products, crop safety and effectiveness against all major diseases compared with existing standards.
In Victoria, ADAMA Australia market development manager Alistair Crawford said the dual mode of action provided by Maxentis would help control all major oat diseases, including septoria, leaf rust and crown rust, and it offered a short, three-week withholding period for grazing and cutting.
Mr Crawford said the fungicide was highly suited to tank mixtures and in canola would be an ideal rotational alternative to existing standards at the 30 per cent flowering application timing, providing control of sclerotinia and upper canopy blackleg, which was becoming a growing concern in southern areas.
In barley, he said it would be excellent for control of scald, with the added benefit of ramularia and PLS control also being on the label.
He said Proviso offered the opportunity for affordable early blackleg control in canola at around the four to six-leaf stage, also in mixes with a range of crop protection products including atrazine and clethodim, and as an alternative to existing standards where SDHI seed treatment was used.
He said early application in mixtures would also target septoria in oats and scald and net blotches in barley, offering improved control particularly where propiconazole was becoming less effective.
