Rowsong®, a killer of downy mildew

As is widely recognized, formulations and types of formulations directly affect the efficacy of products, which makes the formulation and its type count. Dry flowable formulation (DF) is the most advanced one in the series of water dispersible granule (WDG) formulation. The DF formulation is in a form of solid particle, produced by below steps: firstly, wet sand -grinding of technical material obtains the water suspension, then remove the water in the suspension directly by spraying it at a relatively high temperature to make it dry solid particle.

SUNJOY is a technology based company, and we started to study on DF products as early as 2012. Up to now, we have developed and launched some products in DF formulation, including copper oxychloride 84% DF, copper hydroxide 77% DF, which play an important role in solving bacterial diseases that are difficult to prevent and control in China’s agricultural production, such as citrus bacterial canker disease and cucumber angular leaf spot disease, and we have become a leading supplier of inorganic copper plant solutions in China.

SUNJOY’s DF products have the following advantages:

1. It can quickly disintegrate (within 10 seconds) in water, which has good dispersibility, high suspension rate (above 90%), and does not block the nozzle when used;

2. Compared with water suspension（products in SC formulation）, our DF products have good fluidity, good pourability and good storage stability;

3. With fairly small particle size of product, DF product solution is easy to evenly distribute on the surface of crops after spraying, then form a dense film, which is more resistant to rain washing, and the duration of action can be extended by 3-5 days compared with ordinary formulations;

4. After diluting DF products with water, the particle size of the active ingredient of pesticide is relatively small, so it is easy to act on the target, and the control efficacy is improved;

5. High safety, small particle size of the product solution makes it not easy to accumulate in a certain part, beneficial to avoid phytotoxicity.

Meanwhile, SUNJOY’s R&D team insists on studying the DF formulation products, and find that a large part of pesticide ingredients are not suitable for high-tower granulation with high-temperature. Because of the high temperature in the tower, low-melting-point active ingredients will change from solid molecules to liquid state, while active ingredients that are easy to decompose at high temperatures will decompose seriously. In addition, some ordinary additives such as sodium lingo sulfonate have poor heat resistance, so high temperature will destroy the dispersion system. The final result is that DF products produced by ordinary high-temperature dry flowable technology have insufficient active ingredients, agglomerate particles, low suspension rate, as well as greatly reduced efficacy.

Facing the problems existing in ordinary dry flowable technology, SUNJOY adheres to the concept of "innovation leads development", and decides to develop low-temperature dry flowable technology. Finally, the low-temperature dry flowable production workshop with an investment of 100 million RMB was successfully completed on September 30th, 2022, which marked that China's first set of low-temperature dry flowable production lines officially settled in Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. It is regarded as a milestone of China's pesticide formulation development.

SUNJOY's low-temperature dry flowable production process adopts a two-step dehydration polymerization granulation technology, which can keep the drying temperature within 50°C, ensuring that the structure of active ingredient will not be damaged by high temperature. Thus, the biological performance of our DF products are more outstanding compared with other dry flowable products produced by ordinary dry flowable producing process.

Focusing on farming, we find that downy mildew is a big problem waiting to be solved, which causes severe damage every season, because of its wide range of crop hosts, fast transmission speed between hosts, and high resistance to fungicide. From 2017, SUNJOY started to study on it, using low-temperature DF formulation technology, a new product targeting at downy mildew with outstanding biological performance, long-lasting protection, and low resistance risk have been launched, which is named as Rowsong^®(56% cymoxanil +14% cyazofamid DF).

Rowsong^®, is the first product produced by sunjoy’s low –temperature dry flowable technology

1) The particles of rowsong® are grape-shaped, and the particle size is as small as 1µm. When diluted with water, rowsong® will disintegrate within 5 seconds with a suspension rate of 99.9%.

2) Based on the same application dosage, bioassay shows that the inhibitory effect of rowsong® on Phytophthora capsici mycelium is much better than that of similar product produced by ordinary dry flowable technology.

3) In the field trial, the biological performance of Rowsong® against cucumber downy mildew is better than that of similar products produced by ordinary dry flowable technology, as is shown after three times of application at the same dosage:

Contact Information：

Official website:  http://www.sunjoyagro.com/ 

E-mail:  derekhuang@sunjoyagro.com