Why the Perception of Fungicides Is Changing
The conventional wisdom that fungicides are “nice to have” applications that cannot match “must have” herbicides is being challenged, writes Jackie Pucci at CropLife.
From a bird’s-eye view, the segment’s growth speaks volumes: Just about half a million acres of corn were treated with fungicides back in the late ’90s and early 2000s, while today, over 20 million acres are treated. The development of sophisticated “racehorse” hybrids to push the limit on yields and exploit full-season maturity has resulted in much larger windows for disease to come in and become yield-limiting. In addition, troublesome new diseases like tar spot and Curvularia leaf spot have emerged.
“Fungicides are probably more of a must-have than you’re aware of, even though there are years where it may not return very much, if you don’t have disease or abiotic stress,” says Tyler Harp, Fungicide Technical Product Lead with Syngenta US. But in a span of five years, with abiotic stress present in one or two of those years, the average yield bump over the five years is almost always 15 to 18 bushels across any given location, he says.
“One of the things that we’re learning more and more, is that in addition to disease control, certain classes of fungicides — we call them plant health fungicides — have the ability to also increase the productivity and the efficiency of the crop,” Harp tells CropLife®.
Syngenta calls these fungicides, including Miravis Neo, “cleaner and greener.” Cleaner refers to the ability to manage yield-robbing fungal diseases. Greener refers to the prolonged greening of the plant, by which the fungicide ultimately enables the plant to produce more energy for the period that it’s in the field as opposed to a premature senescence or dry down.
“We want to link the fact that it’s cleaner and has good disease control, but it’s greener because of these plant health benefits: Preservation of yield in the presence of abiotic stress, as well as a more efficient and productive crop,” Harp says.
These fungicides can reduce the leaf transpiration rate but maintain photosynthesis — the PS2 efficiency. “We’re conserving and preventing some of the loss of water vapor of the leaf while having no impact on the energy production,” he explains, noting that in a field where a product like Miravis Neo is used compared to an adjacent field where it is not applied, and drought conditions follow, “you’ll get more leaf curl in the untreated.” The leaf is curling because the plant is trying to conserve the water it has.
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