A broader spectrum

Suppliers are combining pesticides to provide superintendents the range of control they want.

Combination products can offer season-long control and make fighting diseases easier and cheaper for superintendents.

Superintendents want to use effective pesticides that have long periods of control, aren’t too costly and control more than one disease. In response, suppliers are providing superintendents pesticides, especially fungicides, which have an increasingly broader spectrum of control. However, suppliers must balance a broader spectrum with concerns of the Environmental Protection Agency. Throughout the years, the spectrum for many pesticides has narrowed, but in the golf market, many suppliers see more opportunities to broaden the spectrum of control by combining two different products.

“Ten years ago, if you were a golf course superintendent and wanted control of 10 weeds, you were using one product,” says Joe DiPaola, Ph.D., golf market manager of Syngenta Professional Products. “Nowadays, the channel has to carry two products that you used one for, and that has an expense.”

That kind of expense can contribute to the pressure superintendents feel because they’re expected to provide well-maintained turf yet deal with budget constraints. Combination products offer season-long control and make fighting disease easier and cheaper for superintendents, according to Nick Hamon, director of development and technical services for Bayer Environmental Science.

However, superintendents never have had more options to control  disease, weed and insect pests, according to Doug Houseworth, turf and ornamental technical service research and development manager for Arysta LifeScience.

“So many materials right now have more than one option per pest,” he says. “Superintendents have more options than they know what to do with.”

Houseworth says superintendents don’t really know exactly what disease they have just by looking at the turf, and rarely does one disease exist by itself. These are two reasons why there’s a demand for combination products, in addition to offering superintendents one product to control the most diseases without tank mixing, Houseworth says.

The reason many suppliers are focusing on fungicides is because diseases such as rapid blight and dollar spot, not weeds, are giving superintendents trouble.

Arysta might introduce a product to the market that combines chlorothalonil and fluoxastrobin, according to Houseworth.

“It’s hard to justify cost of new fungicide because the slice of the market is smaller because of the number of products on the market,” he says. “I see companies going with combination products.”

But however good combination products can be, the regulatory changes for registering a pesticide are more strict and the challenges are greater, according to Scott Eicher, senior product marketing manager for herbicides for Dow AgroSciences.

“This leads to products with narrow spectrum,” he says. “A molecule has a higher likelihood that it will run into hurdles with the EPA if it has a broader spectrum. It’s a challenge for all manufacturers. But the EPA isn’t trying to narrow the spectrum as much as the molecule. The more broad spectrum, the more likely the product will have a negative effect on the environment. The toxicology on a broader spectrum molecule can kill all bugs but can affect other species. Narrowing the spectrum doesn’t affect nontargeted organisms.

“It’s a tough balance because it’s costly to get a molecule to market, yet the end user needs to buy more pesticides because the spectrum is narrower – only treating the organisms he needs to treat,” he adds.

So companies are looking to put two of the same type of pesticides together as premixes, and because the two components are already registered with the EPA, it’s easier to get premixes to market compared to a new chemistry, according to Kyle Miller, senior technical specialist for BASF Professional Turf & Ornamentals products.

“The EPA is more concerned about one product that will impact a lot of different things,” Miller says. “Companies are just making it more convenient for the superintendent.”

The reason many suppliers are focusing on fungicides is because diseases such as rapid blight or dollar spot – not weeds – are giving superintendents trouble, according to Toni Bucci, Ph.D., business manager for BASF Professional Turf & Ornamentals.

“Changing cultural practices and new turfgrasses are two reasons why we’re seeing new diseases such as rapid blight,” she says. “Superintendents are saying they still want long residual control because their time is valuable. They want broader spectrum control, keeping in mind the regulatory issues.”

Bill Brocker, v.p. of marketing for PBI Gordon, says he’s not aware of a fungicide that doesn’t address a disease that superintendents are challenged with, rather, most superintendents have a rotation problem, developing resistance if they use the same product repeatedly. He says suppliers are incorporating multiple chemistries, not new chemistries, in one-formulation herbicides to target broadleaf and grassy weeds.

“With new combinations out there, you don’t need eight or 10 products to kill weeds,” he says.

Houseworth says disease control is more complex than weed control. For example, with warm-season grasses, there’s less disease pressure, and the diseases aren’t quite as severe as those that affect cool-season grasses, he says.

And with all of the combination possibilities, one could reason that a fungicide/herbicide mix might be available in the future. But Tom Kroll, insecticides and fungicides product manager for Arysta LifeScience, says that’s unlikely because of the different timing of different pests. GCN