Appropriate fungicide doses for winter wheat and Matching crop management to growth and yield potential

Abstract

Introduction to appropriate fungicide doses

There are almost as many opinions on the 'right' way to grow cereals as there are growers and consultants.

This diversity of opinion exists because of the large number of variable inputs that influence the unit cost of cereal production, the complexity of their interactions and the difficulty of quantifying the effect of changing any one of these variables, within the farm system.

One variable input that has a substantial effect on the economic efficiency of production, is the use of fungicides to control foliar diseases. Fungicides applied to the UK winter wheat crop in 1993 cost the industry in excess of 100m, but prevented losses estimated at 400m. More recent survey data suggest that potential losses fluctuate with season, but the fungicide spend remains substantial. Getting disease control 'right' is clearly important.

Growers and consultants use experience to make judgements about fungicide applications. This experience, often accumulated over many years, is a valuable commodity. Nevertheless, consistently good decisions seem more likely where experience is backed up by research information which quantifies responses to changes to individual components of the production system.

This report describes some of the principles behind the manipulation of fungicide dose to optimise the economic efficiency of disease control, and presents research information to support crop management decisions.