Corteva Agriscience has announced that oxathiopiprolin, said to be the leading product for the prevention of late blight in potatoes, is now available for Irish farmers in a new formulated product, Zorvec Entecta.
It is a liquid formulation combining oxathiopiprolin with amisulbrom in a one-litre bottle, providing protection for up to ten days after application.
The Zorvec active was launched in 2018 and originally sold in co-packs. More recently, it has been available in co-form with benthiovalicarb as Zorvec Endavia. It has been part of blight strategies due to its preventative activity and the ability to stretch application intervals to ten days.
Alister McRobbie, category manager for potatoes at Corteva said “We’re delighted to achieve registration for Zorvec Entecta in Ireland, where growers will benefit from access to the new product in 2023.
“Zorvec Entecta retains all the qualities of previous Zorvec active products that made them such a vital tool for the potato crop.”
Data from the James Hutton institute revealed that blight strains continue to evolve. Six A1 strains make up a significant proportion of this, although these are been displaced by the more aggressive A2 strains.
“We are seeing no let-up in the challenge facing growers, who will continue to need effective chemistry that allows them to create programmes that fight disease and counter the threat of resistance,” Mr McRobbie adds.
Zorvec Entecta can be applied at 0.25 litres per hectare up to four times in a season, with growers advised making two applications during the rapid growth stage to make the best use of its curative and preventative activity.
Retaining two applications for the latter half of the programme will enable growers to time these to tackle increases in the late blight threat, as indicated by forecasting systems.