China to withdraw three sulfonylurea herbicides

Recently Chinese Ministry of Agriculture announced the final time limit of withdrawal of 3 long residual herbicides including metsulfuron.

1. The use of chlorsulron-containing product in China shall be prohibited; registration of chlorsulron-containing product shall be cancelled from 31 December 2013.

2. The use of metsulfuron and ethametsulfuron in China shall be prohibited step by step; the registration of their single formulation product shall be cancelled from 31 December 2013; the registration of the metsulfuron mixture formulation and registration of ethametsulfuron shall be cancelled from 1 July 2015.

3. The registration of metsulfuron product shall be maintained for export; in case of need for export, enterprises can apply for change of metsulfuron registration for export by a July 2015.

According to the statistics of China Pesticide Registration Watch, there have been respectively 53 registrations of metsulfuron, 21 of chlorsulron and 24 of ethametsulfuron (4 metsulfuron& chlorsulron mixture, so there may be repeated statistics of the 2 products). Except for DuPont’s 2 registered products – metsulfuron technical and the 10% bensulfuron-methyl and metsulfuron wettable powder, all others are registrations of Chinese enterprises.