New fungicide Luna from Bayer registered in the USA

Bayer CropScience has received the registration for its new horticulture fungicide Luna™ (active ingredient: fluopyram) from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Luna™ is now available for the 2012 planting season. For growers, distributors and the entire food value chain, Luna™ extends quality and provides excellent disease control, better storability and longer shelf life of harvested produce. Further registrations for Luna™ are expected in some of the European countries at spring 2012 and in Canada beginning of May 2012.

"With the Luna™ product family, our newest fungicide innovation, growers will have a tool which was uniquely designed to the specific needs of their crops,” said Lykele van der Broek, Chief Operating Officer (COO) of Bayer CropScience. In the USA, the top-priority crops include almonds, pistachios, apples, cherries, wine grapes, potatoes, and watermelon. “Through our intensive work with customers and stakeholders across the food value chain, we have been able to understand evolving trends and challenges, to connect the dots and drive new solutions in disease control.”

The Luna™ product family was developed to control problematic plant diseases caused by fungal pathogens in more than 70 crops, e.g. fruits and vegetables, potatoes and flowers. Luna™ offers fruit and vegetable growers a new level of control for a broad range of problematic diseases including Alternaria blight, scab, powdery mildew and white mold.

"Luna™ demonstrates improvements in long-term tree health and on fruit quality and storability, important aspects for the sustainable production of fruits and vegetables,” Lykele van der Broek pointed out. “Luna™ is creating value beyond efficacy for our customers delivering the highest quality of speciality crops possible.”