If you want to trial a new crop protection product, Queensland is the place to do it. With high temperatures and humidity, disease pressure is at a greater risk and many products are put through the rounds up north.
Add protected cropping to the mix and you really have a high-pressure situation for disease.
This is the environment that Marija Tromp and David Towner from Lindsay Rural in Bundaberg deal with every day.
“We have a grower who's in protective cropping for cucumbers. It's extremely difficult to control diseases and pests,” Ms Tromp said.
“We love baby cucumbers. I love them. I love to give them to my kids in lunchboxes. I love buying them. We got so deeply involved in trying to help the grower with the cucumbers, but it was so hit and miss."
Miravis Duo fungicide from Syngenta was launched in October 2022 for use in fruiting vegetables, cucurbits, rooting vegetables and celery, both in open field and protected cropping situations.
It combines pydiflumetofen (group 7) and difenoconazole (group 3) within a formulation that provides best-in-class disease protection from powdery mildew and leaf spot diseases, while mitigating the risk of fungicide resistance development.
“Pydiflumetofen protects the plant from fungal pathogens by targeting fungi at four different stages of the lifecycle, and with proven activity of difenoconazole, Miravis Duo fungicide really provides an optimised formulation for best-in-class protection,” said Syngenta technical services lead, Dr Brandy Rawnsley.
“On application, Miravis Duo fungicide is locked in the leaves, building up a reservoir to stop fungal pathogens entering the plant. Preventative use prior to infection achieves optimal protection of your crop, especially when wet, humid conditions prevail.”
It was the solution the Lindsay Rural team had been looking for: “We recommended it straight away. Because it has a one-day withholding period (for cucurbits, fruiting vegetables and celery), the grower can spray in late afternoon and then start picking the crop in late afternoon next day, so the picking time wasn't affected as much as for other products,” Ms Tromp said.
David Towner said, “We were looking for a product like Miravis Duo, so when it first came out and we got the training on it, we knew it'd have a fit in this customer's program.”
Lindsay Rural’s current recommendation is to use Miravis Duo fungicide in the early growth stages of cucumbers or baby cucumbers (as well as other cucurbit crops) to manage disease, so that they don't have to apply it at picking, but they appreciate the flexibility of that one-day withholding period.
“The other thing where Miravis Duo ticked the box was improved gummy stem control and increased shelf life; the baby cucumbers were holding for longer,” Ms Tromp said.
“There were just so many benefits that we saw, and growers started to have that confidence in the product and confidence in us helping them. It just worked so well in all these aspects.”
Miravis Duo fungicide should be used in a preventative program with other fungicides, by rotating chemical groups to avoid fungicide resistance developing. Two applications of Miravis Duo fungicide can be used in a crop to provide long lasting protection.
As Mr Towner said, “the grower is still using other products in his program, but the biggest problem was managed by Miravis Duo. It worked so well.”
Ms Tromp added, “we could take two or three different products out of the equation and use Miravis Duo back-to-back, two applications, and that would be the season. So it worked really well, and we were both very pleased.”
