Coming Soon! Union™ Fungicide SC from PBI-Gordon: a New Weapon in Battling Tough Turf Diseases

For golf course superintendents who regularly battle tough turf diseases like Pythium and patch diseases (and what super doesn’t), get ready to add a new weapon to your disease-fighting arsenal. PBI-Gordon will soon bring a powerful new fungicide to market: Union™ Fungicide SC.

Union is a broad-spectrum, flowable liquid formulation that is currently being registered with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) by PBI-Gordon. This product is proposed to preventatively control 21 turf diseases.

Union gets its name from the fact that it is a combination of two active ingredients - azoxystrobin for broad-spectrum performance, including excellent patch disease control, and cyazofamid, the active ingredient that gives Segway® Fungicide SC unsurpassed Pythium disease control.

Union will feature two modes of action, derived from a proprietary combination of Quinone outside inhibitor (QoI) and Quinone inside inhibitor (QiI) chemistry in FRAC groups 11 and 21 – two FRAC groups with no known cross resistance, making it an important tool for controlling diseases resistant to other fungicidal modes of action.

Union will be effective in the preventative and curative treatment of Pythium diseases (including blight, damping off, root dysfunction, root rot), brown patch, anthracnose, cool-weather brown patch, yellow patch, fairy ring, gray leaf spot, red thread, summer patch, and rhizoctonia. In addition, other diseases will be listed on the product label.

This new fungicide is proposed to be labeled for use on all cool-season and warm-season turfgrasses, including Kentucky bluegrass, fine fescues, tall fescue, perennial ryegrass, bentgrass, Bermudagrass (common or hybrid), Bahiagrass, Buffalograss, Centipedegrass, kikuyugrass, seashore paspalum, St. Augustinegrass (including improved varieties of St. Augustinegrass) and Zoysiagrass.

Union is proposed to be labeled for use in a wide variety of areas, including:

• Golf greens, tees, fairways and roughs
• Sod farms
• Seed farms
• College and professional sports fields
• Athletic fields
• Residential lawns
• Commercial lawns
• Parks

The proposed use rate for Union runs from 2.9 fl. oz./1,000 sq. ft. to 5.75 fl. oz./1,000 sq. ft., which will deliver the full power of the two active ingredients. The maximum annual use rate for Union is 17.25 fl. oz. per 1,000 sq. ft. The proposed maximum application rate is 5.75 fl. oz. of product per 1,000 sq. ft. (which equates to 250 fl. oz. or 1.96 gal. of product per acre - that’s equivalent to 1 lb. cyazofamid active ingredient per acre and 0.55 lb. azoxystrobin active ingredient per acre).

There are two additional label restrictions that users need to be aware of:

• Do not apply more than 5 lb. of azoxystrobin ai/acre/year.
• Do not apply more than 3 lb. cyazofamid ai/acre/year.

There are no temperature restrictions on Segway/cyazofamid or azoxystrobin, the active ingredients in Union. The product will be available in a 2 X 2.5 gallon case.

PBI-Gordon expects that Union will receive EPA registration and be available in 2020. Because its registration is still pending, Union is not yet available for use or sale.

This material is provided for informational and educational purposes only. Union is not currently registered or available for sale. Union registration documents have been submitted to the EPA for review in the United States. This information is not intended to promote sales of the product. When product registration is secured, the product label will address claims regarding product safety and efficacy and sales of the product will be based on product labels.

Always read and follow label directions. Union is a trademark of PBI-Gordon Corporation.