Iblon to bring broad-spectrum disease control

A new broad spectrum fungicide is about to appear on the scene which should growers deal with a range of crop diseases that were prevalent in the last growing season due to the favourable weather conditions last Spring and Autumn.

In the spring 2024 Bayer intends to offer its new broad-spectrum fungicide Iblon to growers. For those who have seen it in trials over the past four years, it has delivered impressive control.

Isoflucypram the active substance available under the brand name Iblon is the first fungicide active to be approved by the Chemicals Regulation Division post-Brexit. This makes Britain’s growers the first in Europe to have access to this new fungicide and only the second worldwide after New Zealand.

″Iblon is excellent on both yellow and brown rust and very good on Septoria,″ says Jonathan. ″It is a more active SDHI on Septoria than existing standards, and the flexibility it will add to programmes will make it a valuable addition at either the T1 or T2 timing,″ he adds.

Bayer claims Iblon is a ″groundbreaking new active that delivers unrivalled broad-spectrum control″ and has presented data that supports the assessment of ADAS’s Jonathan Blake.

″In a trial by the University of Nottingham using Skyfall, Iblon delivered better preventative and curative activity on yellow rust than products containing Solatenol (benzovindiflupyr), such as Elatus Plus,″ says Rosalind O’Hare, Bayer campaign manager for combinable fungicides.

″Against Septoria, Iblon was far better than Solatenol and on a par with both Revystar XE (fluxapyroxad + mefentrifluconazole) and Univoq (fenpicoxamid + prothioconazole). Importantly, it has demonstrated strong persistent protection and curative activity as a result of being active against these pathogens at all stages of their lifecycle,″ adds Rosalind.

The advantages of improved disease control are perhaps most evident in a high-pressure season, but the physiological benefits of fungicides often exist regardless of the disease pressure. This is widely accepted, but the extent to which these benefits result in extended green leaf retention varies between products. Bayer investigated the ability of Iblon to extend green leaf area retention in comparison with Ascra Xpro (bixafen + fluopyram + prothioconazole) in trials performed in 2019.  At 36-days after application, the green leaf area of Iblon-treated crops was about 35% more than Ascra Xpro (when applied at the T1 timing) and about 50% more than the untreated.

This was seen in AICC trials performed in 2020. The disease incidence in untreated crops was assessed as being less than 5%, yet Iblon-treated crops yielded 0.5t/ha more [than the untreated].

″The greater green leaf retention seen in Iblon-treated crops has been shown to result in better yields, even in the absence of disease. This supports the value proposition of Iblon irrespective of disease pressure,″ says Rosalind.

Although new to Great Britain, Iblon comes with proven performance. It has been used in New Zealand since 2019 and has been successfully applied to more than 50% of the wheat area.   During the 2023 season, Iblon was made available to members of the Bayer Forward Farmers network across Britain for assessment and comparison.  As part of this programme, Iblon was applied using 40 different farm sprayers without issue.

This article was taken from the latest issue of CPM. Read the article in full here.