Managing fungicide resistance in the UK

The wet and mild growing season, ideal for the growth and spread of fungal disease, in the United Kingdom has meant fungicide management for British growers is the equivalent of managing herbicide resistance for Australian growers.

Official data from the British Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board (AHDB) shows septoria tritici blight, a disease that can slash crop yields with wet conditions, has already got resistance against chemical groups such as imidazole and strobilurin both of which are used in popular fungicides.

Tim Boor, plant pathologist with ADAS UK, said growers were advised to rotate their fungicide modes of action in much the same manner as Australian growers are urged to alternate herbicides.

Speaking at the United Kingdom’s premier grains industry event, the Cereals field day in Cambridgeshire, Mr Boor said growers were also looking to choose varieties with strong disease resistance profiles.

The British breeding industry has been focusing on developing wheat varieties with better resistance to septoria.

The major chemical businesses are also busy putting new fungicides on the market.

Unlike the herbicide sector, where new modes of action are thin on the ground, Syngenta, Bayer and Dow AgroScience have all either released new fungicides recently or will do so shortly.

Syngenta released its SDHI based Solatenol at Cereals, while Dow has a product flagged for a 2019 release using a new mode of action.

Bayer also has a SDHI based product hitting the market shortly.

However, farmers will have to be careful, even with the currently highly rated SDHIs.

Reports from the British agricultural press have said researchers have detected the first signs of septoria with SDHI resistance in southern England.

However, in good news for the industry, the resistant strains were only found at two out of 144 samples collected.