Guatemala: Stockton finds new applications for Timorex Gold

Though Timorex Gold was initially developed by the Stockton Group (STK) as a sustainable and effective control of Black Sigatoka in bananas and a broad spectrum of diseases in vegetables, fruit trees and vineyards further testing and applications have yielded new uses for the biofungicide. Now, Stockton has found that the residue-free compound can help coffee growers prevent and combat coffee rust.

“We started with Sigatoka, but, step by step, the product is taking us to different places,” said Stockton's chairman, Peter Tirosh, at the recent Agritrade conference in Guatemala. “It took us to tomatoes, then tobacco, to lots of vegetables, and now to coffee.” The applications administered to coffee plants affected with rust have been very encouraging, he added. Much in the same way that Timorex Gold has helped both prevent and combat the effects of Black Sigatoka once a plant has been afflicted, Tirosh pointed out that it's also been effective in preventing coffee rust and eradicating it among infected plants.

“The coffee growers we've spoken to, if we show them pictures of plants infected with coffee rust, and then we show them pictures of those same plants two weeks later, they are excited,” said Tirosh. “There are almost no signs of rust two weeks after application.” Those kinds of results have landed Timorex Gold on AnaCafe's list of recommended products to treat coffee rust, and while promising for coffee growers who have to deal with coffee rust, the widening uses for their signature product is also part of a larger trend that Tirosh finds promising.

“Our story, in a wider scope, is that we're proving that it's possible to grow healthy crops with no residues,” he said. Because Timorex uses natural compounds that don't harm plants and leave no residues, Tirosh hopes it will be part of a larger movement that will lead to safe, effective, residue-free agriculture.

“I try to transmit this message to growers, that this is big,” said Tirosh. “We're trying to revolutionize the plant protection business.”