Bayer offers a new Luna^® brand fungicide with launch of Luna^® Flex fungicide labeled for eastern US markets

Bayer is bringing growers in eastern U.S. markets a new Luna^® brand fungicide with Luna^® Flex fungicide to registered crops, including apples, citrus and fruiting vegetables. This dynamic fungicide provides growers with another form of defense to help control problematic diseases like scab, melanose, powdery mildew and gummy stem blight.

Luna Flex is a broad-spectrum fungicide that provides growers with the flexibility to strategically counter common diseases but also helps reduce the severity of secondary diseases like fly speck and brown rot. When growers with a multi-crop operation are looking for a product that can help impact a variety of diseases, Luna Flex delivers a sensible solution. When used within the recommended spray interval, Luna Flex offers long-lasting protection.

This new tool for managing the damaging effects of disease is a strong defense against a problem like scab that growers are seeing cripple apple orchards. Apple scab, caused by the fungus Venturia inaequalis, devastates an apple crop with severe surface and skin blemishes that leave fruit unfit for humans to consume. A proactive approach to fungicide management is a key step in helping to prevent leaf spots and the recognizable corky-brown infected fruit on your acres.

The active ingredients in Luna Flex are fluopyram and difenoconazole, two modes of defense that have been shown to help control the growth and development of fungi on registered crops at all growth stages. Luna Flex is recommended to be used on apples as a preventive application during the first 10–12 weeks of the dormant stage season. As Bayer Product Manager Ryan Allen says, ″Prevention is key. or apple growers, we recommend Luna Flex fungicide applications on healthy trees when the first green leaf tips appear in the spring and through the season until petals begin to fall.″

With long-lasting protection from key diseases in a variety of crops, Luna Flex fungicide makes an ideal addition to management programs for fruit and vegetable growers. Plus, Luna Flex is an eligible product in Bayer PLUS– a rewards program with a broad portfolio of high-performance products designed to enable eastern U.S. growers to make sound agronomic decisions to address their unique challenges and then be rewarded with cash.

For more information, growers should contact their local retailers or visit www.LunaFlex.com