The old saying that no news is good news certainly holds true when septoria and resistance are on one’s mind. In this regard, the word back from all of those looking at the evolution of this pathogen is that there is no change. But the need for concern continues.
Perhaps virtually no change might be a somewhat more accurate statement, as the results which Steven Kildea presented at the Tillage Conference earlier this year indicated a very slight sensitivity shift (totally insignificant for the moment).
But we cannot ignore this risk across a number of diseases, given the experiences to date in other countries in Europe.
While our SDHIs appear to be holding solid, our triazoles continue to lose efficacy against septoria at field level, especially on curative activity.
But they still perform an important role. They provide the only real level of potentially parallel activity to help protect the SDHIs when used in mixtures at appropriate rates.
Keeping triazoles away from a pre-T1 slot remains important. Work carried out by Teagasc last year, and reported at one of the many spring conferences, indicated that triazole efficacy slips during the season following previous applications.
While this loss of efficacy is a problem in itself, of far greater concern is the fact that this means they have less to offer in the protection of the SDHIs in co-mixtures as the season progresses.
For those who need this spelled out, the use of triazoles in a pre-T1 on bigger farming units adds to the risk to all our futures.
Supply chain threat
If only resistance and wheat were the sole issues. Many of you will vaguely remember the issue that arose in the late 2000s when the enforced change to hazard-based assessment brought endocrine disruptors on to our radar and threatened to remove a huge number of actives from the market, including virtually all the triazole fungicides.
Well that issue hasn’t gone away. Put simply, the loss of all triazoles would guarantee the collapse of the SDHIs and bring grain production in this country to an end. Perhaps you hadn’t thought about it quite like this before.
Up to recently, the industry has always had a pipeline of new actives to up the ante before older technology lost its effectiveness.
Perhaps now we realise that we are not about to be rained on by a shower of new actives as triazoles fade. Yes, there are reports of a few new actives and a new family of fungicides. But will that really matter?
Unless such products happen to possess multi modes of action and prove very robust, their lifespan is also likely to be short.
There are probably four main reasons why the pipeline of new actives has dried up.
The cost of development of new actives has become hugely expensive given the safety and environmental requirements being imposed for registration. The removal of products from the market post-registration in some instances. The uncertainty as to what the legislators will demand at the end of the development process. The opening up of new markets on broad-acre crops elsewhere in the world for existing older chemistry. All of these factors combined have moved a significant proportion of R&D money away from chemistry and towards genetics in recent years. And this is happening in all of the multinational companies.
While there is now more active research into tangible genetic resistance to a range of pests, there is no guarantee that any such capability will be available before our chemistry fails.
We have depended too much on fungicides. We pressured them with bad husbandry, such as early drilling, susceptible varieties and the non-removal of infection pressure. Nature is winning this battle in wheat, but it can equally win the same battles in time on barley if we allow it to. And we have now added herbicide resistance to our list of problems, for largely the same reasons.
Advisers have a significant role to play here, but ultimately it is up to growers to ensure that they use the tools that are still available in the best possible way to help prevent resistance development in a range of diseases.
Meanwhile, rationalisation continues within the industry. Last year, a new supplier name appeared called Adama Agricultural Solutions UK. This has long been a big generic product supplier under the Makhteshim Agan Industries umbrella and is privately owned by ChemChina (60%) and Koor Industries (40%).
The new UK-based business is to bring a new business outlook to its 120 active substances. It also hopes to introduce new, easy-to-identify, colour-coded packaging with QR codes, clear labelling and measurement strips on cans as an additional and welcome safety measure for distributors, farmers, contractors and sprayer operators.
In the past year, there have also been rumours with regard to a possible amalgamation of Syngenta and Monsanto. The rumours appear to have been more fuelled by plant breeding capability than by chemistry. This rumour was officially denied some time ago, but appears to be resurfacing. A sign of the times for chemistry suppliers.
Endocrine disruptors
What are endocrine disruptors? These are substances that could interfere with the reproductive systems in a range of species and so technically present a hazard. The challenge was to find a satisfactory definition of what an endocrine disruptor actually was and that has been the subject of significant debate at EU level for a number of years. It also became an issue for transatlantic relations.
When a definition was eventually proposed, it was challenged by very many interests outside of agriculture and environment. It looked like a bit of common sense was being forced on the debate and a range of new measures were put in place to help lead to a more appropriate decision-making process. This included a public consultation process which concluded last January.
The consultation received some 27,000 submissions, the majority of which were submitted by non-
governmental organisations. Around 2,000 came from farmers and industry who would be directly impacted by the final decision.
The first assessment of the consequences of these submissions was expected by the end of 2015 – some now believe that the end of 2016 is a more likely date for any alternative proposal to be considered. The original legislation called for a suitable definition to be put in place, but this process was driven by environmental interests only. Now it appears that an impact assessment must form part of the decision-making process.
While a decision on this issue has been delayed, the issue has not gone away. The original proposal would have removed all the triazoles, as well as many other actives. Any final deal will inevitably involve the loss of some actives.
If a level of common sense is allowed, this may mean the loss of far fewer actives than appeared likely in the original proposal.
With those who make these decisions now being held more accountable for their actions, it is at least possible that a final deal will involve some combination of hazard in conjunction with risk management. What was originally proposed spelled disaster for the Irish cereal industry, so every bit of movement on this issue is a help.
Blackgrass threat
Some growers and advisers will remember 2014 as the year of their first encounter with blackgrass. Many tillage farmers know this grassweed as the scourge of the east of England. It is a hugely yield-robbing grass and has proven itself to being very adept at overcoming the best efforts of all families in the chemical cabinet.
For those who can still kill it with chemicals, it is a very expensive problem (up to €100/ac) on many farms. For those who have no chemical tools remaining, it is back to old-fashioned husbandry such as cultural control and rotation to help contain it – practices that should never have been discarded.
Blackgrass has been present in Ireland since the 1980s and individual farmers have endured a private battle with it. Most of these battles were won by the growers involved and they used a sensible combination of measures to help eradicate it. One of these must always be rogueing to prevent the last one or two plants from going to seed, because ultimately the seed bank has to be destroyed.
Over the past three decades, we have seen a number of grassweed problems come and go in this country. Scutch, wild oats and roughstalk meadowgrass have thus far been satisfactorily controlled by herbicides. Annual meadowgrass remains a perennial problem. Creeping softgrass became a serious problem for some, but the introduction of set-aside provided a timely tool for its eradication. Since then, the appearance of ryegrass and canarygrass as weeds have provided formidable opposition for our chemical toolbox.
These latter weeds may have awoken a new level of respect for our weed population. That, plus the widespread appearance of herbicide resistance in broadleaved weeds, is forcing growers to be more wary of these formidable foes. Perhaps this is part of the reason why there were so many sightings of blackgrass last year. Growers would do well to remember that weed problems begin with single plants. Diligence pays in the long term.
Thankfully, a number of growers were awake to the threat from blackgrass and at least one grower put a cereal crop into a silage pit to prevent the grass from going to seed and further contaminating the land. Others became more diligent in terms of checking and rogueing their fields.
Blackgrass is a particularly dangerous weed. Its main method of introduction has been via imported (generally English) seed. It can also come with machinery, especially combines. But the real concern is that seeds introduced now could well produce plants that are resistant to most or all chemistry families.
Earlier this year, I asked Rothamsted Research expert Stephen Moss for his opinion as to why blackgrass had not become a serious problem on this island.
His reply indicated that early planting of continuous wheat in min-till situations was key to its ability to thrive and these practices are relatively new here.
However, we do now have quite early planting and much more non-inversion establishment, so we are providing the conditions necessary for this weed to thrive.
Steven also said that a sample he received from Ireland in 2014 was actually highly sensitive to all chemical families. This means that this specific sample is likely to have been in this country for many years. It also reinforces the need for vigilance, especially with regard to imported seed.
The old saying that no news is good news certainly holds true when septoria and resistance are on one’s mind. In this regard, the word back from all of those looking at the evolution of this pathogen is that there is no change. But the need for concern continues.
Perhaps virtually no change might be a somewhat more accurate statement, as the results which Steven Kildea presented at the Tillage Conference earlier this year indicated a very slight sensitivity shift (totally insignificant for the moment).
But we cannot ignore this risk across a number of diseases, given the experiences to date in other countries in Europe.
While our SDHIs appear to be holding solid, our triazoles continue to lose efficacy against septoria at field level, especially on curative activity.
But they still perform an important role. They provide the only real level of potentially parallel activity to help protect the SDHIs when used in mixtures at appropriate rates.
Keeping triazoles away from a pre-T1 slot remains important. Work carried out by Teagasc last year, and reported at one of the many spring conferences, indicated that triazole efficacy slips during the season following previous applications.
While this loss of efficacy is a problem in itself, of far greater concern is the fact that this means they have less to offer in the protection of the SDHIs in co-mixtures as the season progresses.
For those who need this spelled out, the use of triazoles in a pre-T1 on bigger farming units adds to the risk to all our futures.
Supply chain threat
If only resistance and wheat were the sole issues. Many of you will vaguely remember the issue that arose in the late 2000s when the enforced change to hazard-based assessment brought endocrine disruptors on to our radar and threatened to remove a huge number of actives from the market, including virtually all the triazole fungicides.
Well that issue hasn’t gone away. Put simply, the loss of all triazoles would guarantee the collapse of the SDHIs and bring grain production in this country to an end. Perhaps you hadn’t thought about it quite like this before.
Up to recently, the industry has always had a pipeline of new actives to up the ante before older technology lost its effectiveness.
Perhaps now we realise that we are not about to be rained on by a shower of new actives as triazoles fade. Yes, there are reports of a few new actives and a new family of fungicides. But will that really matter?
Unless such products happen to possess multi modes of action and prove very robust, their lifespan is also likely to be short.
There are probably four main reasons why the pipeline of new actives has dried up.
The cost of development of new actives has become hugely expensive given the safety and environmental requirements being imposed for registration. The removal of products from the market post-registration in some instances. The uncertainty as to what the legislators will demand at the end of the development process. The opening up of new markets on broad-acre crops elsewhere in the world for existing older chemistry. All of these factors combined have moved a significant proportion of R&D money away from chemistry and towards genetics in recent years. And this is happening in all of the multinational companies.
While there is now more active research into tangible genetic resistance to a range of pests, there is no guarantee that any such capability will be available before our chemistry fails.
We have depended too much on fungicides. We pressured them with bad husbandry, such as early drilling, susceptible varieties and the non-removal of infection pressure. Nature is winning this battle in wheat, but it can equally win the same battles in time on barley if we allow it to. And we have now added herbicide resistance to our list of problems, for largely the same reasons.
Advisers have a significant role to play here, but ultimately it is up to growers to ensure that they use the tools that are still available in the best possible way to help prevent resistance development in a range of diseases.
Meanwhile, rationalisation continues within the industry. Last year, a new supplier name appeared called Adama Agricultural Solutions UK. This has long been a big generic product supplier under the Makhteshim Agan Industries umbrella and is privately owned by ChemChina (60%) and Koor Industries (40%).
The new UK-based business is to bring a new business outlook to its 120 active substances. It also hopes to introduce new, easy-to-identify, colour-coded packaging with QR codes, clear labelling and measurement strips on cans as an additional and welcome safety measure for distributors, farmers, contractors and sprayer operators.
In the past year, there have also been rumours with regard to a possible amalgamation of Syngenta and Monsanto. The rumours appear to have been more fuelled by plant breeding capability than by chemistry. This rumour was officially denied some time ago, but appears to be resurfacing. A sign of the times for chemistry suppliers.
Endocrine disruptors
What are endocrine disruptors? These are substances that could interfere with the reproductive systems in a range of species and so technically present a hazard. The challenge was to find a satisfactory definition of what an endocrine disruptor actually was and that has been the subject of significant debate at EU level for a number of years. It also became an issue for transatlantic relations.
When a definition was eventually proposed, it was challenged by very many interests outside of agriculture and environment. It looked like a bit of common sense was being forced on the debate and a range of new measures were put in place to help lead to a more appropriate decision-making process. This included a public consultation process which concluded last January.
The consultation received some 27,000 submissions, the majority of which were submitted by non-
governmental organisations. Around 2,000 came from farmers and industry who would be directly impacted by the final decision.
The first assessment of the consequences of these submissions was expected by the end of 2015 – some now believe that the end of 2016 is a more likely date for any alternative proposal to be considered. The original legislation called for a suitable definition to be put in place, but this process was driven by environmental interests only. Now it appears that an impact assessment must form part of the decision-making process.
While a decision on this issue has been delayed, the issue has not gone away. The original proposal would have removed all the triazoles, as well as many other actives. Any final deal will inevitably involve the loss of some actives.
If a level of common sense is allowed, this may mean the loss of far fewer actives than appeared likely in the original proposal.
With those who make these decisions now being held more accountable for their actions, it is at least possible that a final deal will involve some combination of hazard in conjunction with risk management. What was originally proposed spelled disaster for the Irish cereal industry, so every bit of movement on this issue is a help.
Blackgrass threat
Some growers and advisers will remember 2014 as the year of their first encounter with blackgrass. Many tillage farmers know this grassweed as the scourge of the east of England. It is a hugely yield-robbing grass and has proven itself to being very adept at overcoming the best efforts of all families in the chemical cabinet.
For those who can still kill it with chemicals, it is a very expensive problem (up to €100/ac) on many farms. For those who have no chemical tools remaining, it is back to old-fashioned husbandry such as cultural control and rotation to help contain it – practices that should never have been discarded.
Blackgrass has been present in Ireland since the 1980s and individual farmers have endured a private battle with it. Most of these battles were won by the growers involved and they used a sensible combination of measures to help eradicate it. One of these must always be rogueing to prevent the last one or two plants from going to seed, because ultimately the seed bank has to be destroyed.
Over the past three decades, we have seen a number of grassweed problems come and go in this country. Scutch, wild oats and roughstalk meadowgrass have thus far been satisfactorily controlled by herbicides. Annual meadowgrass remains a perennial problem. Creeping softgrass became a serious problem for some, but the introduction of set-aside provided a timely tool for its eradication. Since then, the appearance of ryegrass and canarygrass as weeds have provided formidable opposition for our chemical toolbox.
These latter weeds may have awoken a new level of respect for our weed population. That, plus the widespread appearance of herbicide resistance in broadleaved weeds, is forcing growers to be more wary of these formidable foes. Perhaps this is part of the reason why there were so many sightings of blackgrass last year. Growers would do well to remember that weed problems begin with single plants. Diligence pays in the long term.
Thankfully, a number of growers were awake to the threat from blackgrass and at least one grower put a cereal crop into a silage pit to prevent the grass from going to seed and further contaminating the land. Others became more diligent in terms of checking and rogueing their fields.
Blackgrass is a particularly dangerous weed. Its main method of introduction has been via imported (generally English) seed. It can also come with machinery, especially combines. But the real concern is that seeds introduced now could well produce plants that are resistant to most or all chemistry families.
Earlier this year, I asked Rothamsted Research expert Stephen Moss for his opinion as to why blackgrass had not become a serious problem on this island.
His reply indicated that early planting of continuous wheat in min-till situations was key to its ability to thrive and these practices are relatively new here.
However, we do now have quite early planting and much more non-inversion establishment, so we are providing the conditions necessary for this weed to thrive.
Steven also said that a sample he received from Ireland in 2014 was actually highly sensitive to all chemical families. This means that this specific sample is likely to have been in this country for many years. It also reinforces the need for vigilance, especially with regard to imported seed.
This is a subscriber-only article
SHARING OPTIONS: