Bayer CropScience’s fungicide Proline approved against fusarium in corn

Bayer CropScience has picked up Canada's first label registration for a fungicide to suppress fusarium in corn.

The company on Monday announced the expanded label for Proline, which is already registered for suppression of fusarium head blight and control of various other diseases in barley and wheat, as well as control of sclerotinia stem rot in canola and control of ascochyta blight in lentils and chickpeas.

Proline can suppress a fusarium infection in corn and thus reduce the levels of DON, the mycotoxin it creates in infected crops, the company said.

The expanded label also makes Proline the only Canadian fungicide for suppression of gibberella ear rot in corn, as well as for protection against rusts, eyespot, grey leaf spot and northern blight, the company said.

"Keeping corn crops disease-free with fungicide applications is becoming a best management practice of corn growers in the U.S.," Greg Good, Bayer's portfolio manager for row crops, said in the company's release.

"Now that Canadian corn growers have access to a fungicide like Proline to confront the worst diseases in corn, industry watchers anticipate growers will take up the challenge of producing the cleanest grain possible with the new technology."

DON (short for "deoxynivalenol") is known to affect the quality of infected grain for a number of end uses, such as feed refusal and reproductive issues in livestock fed infected grain.

And low DON levels in crops coming off the combine are also known to boost DON levels by a factor of three in dried distillers grains with solubles (DDGS), a byproduct of ethanol production also used in livestock rations.

"Using and adding value to this byproduct may be essential to the sustainability of the fuel ethanol business in Canada," Luc Bourgeois, research and development manager for Bayer CropScience's Calgary-based Canadian arm.