Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, USA
December 7, 2012
TOPGUARD® did a good job for cotton root rot control in Texas in 2012. The emergency exemption has been renewed for the 2013 season.
For a second year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has granted Texas cotton growers emergency approval to use TOPGUARD® Fungicide to control cotton root rot. The emergency exemption approval was announced in October and will be in effect from February 1, 2013 until June 30, 2013.
An important tool for growers in Texas
TOPGUARD® will allow cotton growers to shorten their rotation cycle between cotton crops as well as consider growing cotton in fields that they have avoided in years due to cotton root rot. TOPGUARD® with the active substance flutriafol is the only solution that growers have to utilize for control of this problem.
Uvalde, Texas, cotton grower Austin Clary also used TOPGUARD®. "When you realize you don't have cotton root rot, it is very impressive," he says.
"There are some fields you can't put into cotton because of the root rot," says Clary. "TOPGUARD® has changed that. It has given us the opportunity to take advantage of marketing opportunities. We can plant more cotton. Control of cotton root rot is right up there with eradication of the boll weevil."
EPA granted the first emergency exemption for this use of TOPGUARD® on cotton in early 2012 and the fungicide was used widely throughout Texas in fields where cotton production has been limited by cotton root rot. The experience gained under the 2012 emergency approval has been very positive.
> The new market for flutriafol in Texas was also featured in our Interim Report for Q1 2012
"In South Texas, cotton root rot is a tremendous problem," says Mark Sugarek, a Beeville, Texas, cotton grower. "I put TOPGUARD® on an irrigated farm that dies 90% or better from cotton root rot when planted to cotton. The product worked. I would try it elsewhere in a heartbeat."
> See what the growers have to say about TOPGUARD® and cotton root rot.
topguard_2min_111612.wmv (77.8 MB)
Label expansion in the US
TOPGUARD® fungicide's row crop registration has been expanded to include field corn, field corn grown for seed, popcorn, sugar beets and peanuts, in addition to soybeans.
The TOPGUARD® fungicide specialty crop label has been expanded also. It now includes pome fruit—apple, crabapple, loquat and quince as well as stone fruit—sweet cherry, tart cherry, apricot, nectarine, peach, plum, Chicksaw plum, Damson plum, Japanese plum and prune.
"We are pleased to add these crops to TOPGUARD's labels," says Deneen Sebastian, fungicide portfolio manager for Cheminova Inc. - "The approval was announced in September and we look forward to more growers reaping the benefit of applying TOPGUARD to more crops."
"TOPGUARD® is a top-performing fungicide with curative and preventive properties. In many situations, its unique chemistry makes TOPGUARD®, with the active ingredient flutriafol, an excellent choice to prevent fungicide resistance and handle tough diseases not effectively controlled by other chemistry," she adds.
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