Australia
July 9, 2020
By Chris Monsour
Growers and advisors would be very happy to see results like those achieved at GrowMore, according to Chris Monsour, Prospect Agriculture, Bowen.
Over the past three years Syngenta has hosted horticultural field trials under the GrowMore banner to demonstrate crop protection products under commercial conditions. The GrowMore concept has immense value for advisors and growers. It showcases new chemistry in a commercial program so we can evaluate how the products work and how they might fit into an overall strategy, in many cases well ahead of launch to the market.
I have been involved in two GrowMore demonstrations and the feedback from the Ayr site in 2019 was excellent. My role was to oversee the establishment of these sites, tailoring a crop protection program based on the insect pests present as well as protectant disease program.
The GrowMore sites are a fantastic concept. We get to see the results in our local growing conditions on a regular basis and it provides an opportunity for growers to come in and see that as well. Often growers don’t get to see what would happen if no sprays were applied, it provides an appreciation of how intense the insect and disease activity can be and therefore how effective the crop protection program has proven to be.
It also means Syngenta sales and technical staff can interact with growers and advisors and hear some of the challenges in their patch. Syngenta is always working on its pipeline of new products and being a research and development company, any feedback goes a long way.
Delivering the Bowen site from transplant in March, until trial-end in June, has proven to be quite different since we were not able to hold the field day because of COVID-19 restrictions. To Syngenta’s credit we came up with an alternative, which involved me sharing weekly video recordings of how the crops developed with a particular focus on the changing insect pest and disease spectrum, and the results from the insecticide and fungicide programs. This brought the GrowMore experience virtually to the audience that could no longer visit the field day and into the crops much sooner.
The range of products that we used in the spray program included MINECTO® FORTE, PROCLAIM® OPTI, ORONDIS® FLEXI, and a new development fungicide, as well as first commercial look at the new PLINAZOLIN® insecticide (not yet registered in Australia).
In both the tomato and the rockmelon paddocks the results were excellent. There was very effective control of insect pests in both the rockmelons and the tomatoes. There was more disease pressure in the rockmelons compared to the tomatoes and the control of gummy stem blight and downy mildew in the rockmelons was very impressive.
Both growers and advisors would be very happy to see these results in their own fields. It was a very impressive overall result.
To see the weekly instalments, visit www.syngenta.com.au/growmore.
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