Canada approved BASF’s fungicide Zampro

BASF Canada announced it had picked up regulatory approval for Zampro, combining dimethomorph -- the Group 40 active ingredient already used in BASF's hort-crop fungicide Acrobat 50WP -- with ametoctradin, which the company described as "the first Group 45 fungicide registered anywhere in the world."

Zampro will thus combine "preventative and anti-sporulant control combined with contact, translaminar and systemic activity," said Scott Hodgins, a BASF technical specialist for horticultural products, in the company's release.

Ametoctradin, in Zampro at 300 grams per litre, controls downy mildew and late blight by "disrupting energy production" in the mitochondria of fungal cells, BASF said.

The new ingredient is "very rapidly rainfast (and) can redistribute on the plant surface when exposed to rainfall, irrigation or dew, effectively re-protecting the plant," the company said. The product "binds rapidly and tightly to the plants' waxy cuticle, providing a rapidly rainfast barrier to infection."

Dimethomorph, meanwhile, is in Zampro at 225 grams per litre. It controls infection by preventing the disease from penetrating plant cells and acts also as an anti-sporulant, which according to BASF will allow Zampro to stop disease from spreading out of "hot spots that may develop in (a) field or vineyard."

The new product's label covers it for use in "the complete cucurbit, brassica, bulb vegetable, fruiting vegetable and leafy vegetable crop groups," BASF said. Application rates range from 0.8 to one litre per hectare depending on the crop and the disease in question.