Bayer launched Raxil PRO Shield cereal seed treatment

Bayer CropScience has installed a neonicotinoid wireworm defense in the latest version of its Raxil cereal seed treatment.

The company recently launched Raxil PRO Shield, which includes the active fungicides from Bayer’s Raxil PRO formulation, tebuconazole, prothioconazole and metalaxyl.

The new product, however, also includes imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid insecticide, in a new “Stress Shield” additive.

Stress Shield, Bayer said in a release, “was engineered to improve plant health… by supplying additional energy pools for internal repair and coping systems resulting in plants with a higher performing root system, robust growth and increased yield.”

The imidacloprid active helps control wireworm, the company said, “by causing the insect to fall dormant long enough for the seed to mature.”

At its smaller size, the new product is packaged with 10 litres of Raxil PRO in a 13-litre jug with a 1.55-litre container of Stress Shield, to be mixed in the larger container.

Raxil PRO Shield is approved for use in wheat, oat and barley crops. Along with wireworm control, its label covers it for control of alternaria, aspergillus, cochliobolus sativus seedling blight, common bunt, covered smut, false loose smut, fusarium, fusarium root rot, fusarium seedling blight, leaf stripe, loose smut, seedborne septoria and true loose smut, and for suppression of cochliobolus sativus root rot and fusarium crown rot.

“One rate of Raxil PRO Shield provides growers with full protection during the most crucial time of crop development, regardless of what the disease levels in the field may be,” Graham Hastie, Bayer CropScience’s Canadian portfolio manager for cereals, said in the release.