Fosetyl-aluminium: Focusing on European wine grape market, Limin’s product concept upgraded

Editor：Mickey Shan

Feature : Showcase of China’s ″Specialized and Novel″ crop protection products/technologies/applications

▋ Special sponsor: Lansheng Biotechy 

▋ A total of 11 enterprises are introduced in this series; The Feature was first published in the latest "2023 China Pesticide Industry Watch" 

The overall industrial upgrading of Chinese manufacture industry happens to coincides with the unprecedented changes in the last 100 years. 

In this new era full of opportunities and policy support, the Chinese pesticide enterprises have worked hard to achieve constant technical breakthroughs via innovation and upgrading, as based on the experiences gained in the past decades. Some enterprises have so far made preliminary achievements, having formed an advanced and sophisticated technology and product cluster. 

In this Feature, we have selected 11 Chinese pesticide manufacturers that are characterized with professionalism, intensification, specialization and novelty, which is a presentation of Chinese pesticide enterprise’s research and development of new products, breakthroughs in technical innovation, upgrading of type of formulations and continued exploration of applications. The publication will exhibit the achievements in each individual sector, which is internationally advanced, revealing the new competitiveness of Chinese pesticide industry.

▉Series of special topics are released in succession → specially planned by AgroPages

• Lansheng Biotech：Green chemical innovation drives fine chemical production to reach a new level

• Eastlake High-Tech: Application of microreaction, continuous flow technologies to improve quality of plant growth regulators

• Qilu, industry leader of high quality spinosad

• KingAgroot – Innovative flagship integrating compound creation and biotechnical breeding

• CAC Nantong: Cyproflanilide, a created novel insecticide with unique action mechanism

• Yonon: Production of L-glufosinate on multienzyme

• Lier Chemical: 20,000-ton L-glufosinate production capacity to start running soon

• Red Sun: Diquat dichloride aims to create new burndown herbicide market trend

• Fosetyl-aluminium: Focusing on European wine grape market, Limin’s product concept upgraded

• Pilarbio: Working imaginatively on CS – an innovative cutting-edge formulation

• Chengdu New Sun: Making breakthroughs in industrialized application of plant growth regulation coronatine, first time in the world

  Fosetyl-aluminium: Focusing on European wine grape market, Limin’s product concept upgraded   

▌Fosetyl-aluminium: Wide application with great market potential

Fosetyl-aluminium is an organophosphorus high-efficient, broad-spectrum, systemic and low-toxic fungicide.

Besides its good fungicidal effect, the product has the function of induction of plant resistance to disease. In recent years, its market demand has grown with great potential.

Fosetyl-aluminium is bidirectionally systemic, both acropetal and basipetal, which can be absorbed by crop roots to ascend to the stems and leaves above ground. It can also be absorbed by upper leaves to descend to the base foliage, being concurrently protective and curative.

Fosetyl-aluminium has a broad fungicidal spectrum, effective against diseases caused by downy mildew, phytophthora pathogen and plasmopara, such as vegetable and fruit tree downy mildew, blight, pineapple heart rot, citrus root rot, stem rot, grass stem rot and red pulp. It is applied to a wide range of crops, including various melons, fruits, vegetables and flower plants.

Europe is a key market of Fosetyl-aluminium, mainly used to control wine grape downy mildew. According to Customs data sorted out by AgroPages, China’s main destinations for the export of Fosetyl-aluminium in 2019 included France, Spain, Italy and Portugal. In recent years, new applications of Fosetyl-aluminium have been discovered, such as its use in the premium cash crop avocado. To this end, market demand for Fosetyl-aluminium has increased significantly.

Currently, China has a production capacity of roughly 20,000 tons Fosetyl-aluminium, of which Limin Group possesses 12,000 tons, ranking far ahead in production output. According to AgroPages, in 2019 China exported nearly 9,451 tons of Fosetyl-aluminium, with an export value of about $27.68 million, of which Limin Group took up nearly 50%.

▌To shape Fosetyl-aluminium’s international product quality and supply advantage

Limin Group is a global leader in the Fosetyl-aluminium production process and production volume. In 2020, Limin Group decided to develop Fosetyl-aluminium and spent RMB230 million on the launch of a 12,000-ton Fosetyl-aluminium technical upgrading project. It aimed to upgrade the company’s existing superior product variety and further enhance its core competitiveness in fungicides.

Limin’s Fosetyl-aluminium project construction started in February 2021. The project adopted the micro-reaction, closed separation and drying process, which is fully automatic. It is implemented with the idea of a cyclic economy and clean production, where all economic and technical indicators have reached advanced international level, fully achieving the goal of full green cyclic development.

While project construction was going on, Limin Group achieved the international standard accreditation of its Fosetyl-aluminium, a breakthrough in its effort on overseas registration. In December 2021, the Fosetyl-aluminium (TC, WP) standard submitted by Limin Chemical passed reviews twice conducted by JMPS experts. It was approved as an equivalent FAO standard, facilitating Limin’s further product marketing in overseas markets and its international brand building.  

In April 2022, after a year’s construction, Limin’s Fosetyl-aluminium technical upgrading project passed the examination by the pilot production experts, and officially put into a trial run. The project adopts a new production process, where the change from batch run to continuous run increases the yield from reaction while reducing loss from production, which is positively impacts the cost reduction. Moreover, the new process enables the recycling of by-products and the renovation of environmental facilities. This paves the way for stable production at the designed capacity. So far, the trial production has been completed, all the processes, technologies and equipment have been validated. The product verification for key customers was completed by the end of the fourth quarter of 2022 and was already brought to full capacity production.

At present, Limin’s Fosetyl-aluminium product sales have been secured via signed contracts, mainly for export to the European wine region. In addition to the Fosetyl-aluminium technical, Limin’s Fosetyl-aluminium formulation series, such as 80WP, 80WDG and 90SP are well received in the European market.  

▌Product concept upgrade, supported by mancozeb

Limin Group is a modern corporate group integrating the research and development, production and sales of pesticide (veterinary drugs) technical and formulations, being one of the Top 50 Pesticide Enterprises in China. Its product portfolio covers three major categories, including fungicides, insecticides and herbicides as well as veterinary drugs, with a territory of trade covering more than 80 countries and regions.

Mancozeb is the first business signage of Limin in the Chinese domestic and international market, based on which Limin has succeeded in the independent or collaborative development of various fungicides such as pyrimethanil, zineb, propineb, Fosetyl-aluminium, chlorothalonil and azoxystrobin. These products form a synergistic effect with the existing mancozeb in product mixing, product marketing and complementation of disease prevention and control.

In 2017, Limin Group acquired Shuangji Chemical, which enabled the consolidation of China’s production and marketing of mancozeb and dithiocarbamate fungicides, having become the world’s second-largest supplier of such products. In 2019, Limin Group acquired Hebei Veyong through an equity purchase, which realized an all-round product line extension from fungicides to herbicides and insecticides. The acquisition also allows utilization of Hebei Veyong’s overseas registration deployment to consolidate further Limin’s major overseas markets, such as the United States and Brazil.

At present, Limin has successfully built up its biological smart manufacturing system and green chemistry research platform, which are concentrated on fermentation-based biosynthesis to shape a phosphorus-grade product portfolio based on glufosinate, Fosetyl-aluminium and fosthiazate, a sulfur-grade chemical series based on zineb, propineb and lime sulphur, as well as a fluorine chemical series based on lithium battery materials.

This article was initially published in AgroPages' 2023 China Pesticide Industry Watch magazine.