The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has extended the expiry date for mancozeb to the 31st of May to account for delays in the WTO process.
The industry continues to lobby to maintain the use of the active ingredient, and UPL is stating that will explore all options in support of mancozeb’s registration in Great Britain.
With the new deadline, the sale and supply of any product containing mancozeb will end on the 30th of November, with the final date for storage, disposal and use of the products being one year later.
Geoff Hailstone, potato technical lead at UPL, said: “Grower representatives, the potato industry, and UPL continue to make significant efforts to defend the use of mancozeb. The loss of this active ingredient would leave the industry without a vital tool for disease control and fungicide resistance management.
“Nautile DG (cymoxanil + mancozeb) and Manzate 75 WG (mancozeb) continue to be available throughout the sell-out period. I would encourage growers and advisors to speak with their suppliers to let them know what they expect to need. This information greatly helps with our supply planning.”
He further advised that growers should continue to adhere to the FRAC guidance. “Without mancozeb, products like Proxanil (cymoxanil + propamocarb) would become even more critical. The two actives in Proxanil have no reported resistance issues; they are both from different chemistry groups and are the only members of those groups.
“Cymoxanil is known to be one of the few actives with kickback activity and has a very low risk of developing resistance. It could be particularly useful in countering blight appearing very early in the season from infected seed. Propamocarb is the only active with strong anti-sporulant activity across all known strains, has good movement in the plant and is the only active in the carbamate resistance group.
“When tank-mixed with a protectant fungicide such as cyazofamid, Proxanil strengthens the activity and gives excellent resistance management,” concluded Geoff.
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