Fungicide performance in cereals and oilseed rape

Our fungicide performance work provides high-quality, independent information on the efficacy of fungicides against key diseases in wheat, barley and oilseed rape.

Knowledge of the potential power of an active ingredient (or product) is essential in disease management. First and foremost, it will help you gauge the potential return on your spray investments. Critically, it can be used to develop effective fungicide programmes that balance the need to control disease with the need to protect chemistry from fungicide resistance.

Integrated pest management (IPM) is at the heart of disease management. A well-designed rotation (to minimise disease pressure) and an appropriate variety (to resist the main diseases present) will lay a solid foundation and reduce the requirement for chemistry. Where sprays are necessary, our efficacy results can be used to help build fungicide programmes – based on mixtures of active ingredients and products – appropriate to the local disease-threat profile and in keeping with best practice anti-resistance guidelines.

Fungicide performance information has been generated for many years – wheat since 1994, barley since 2002 and oilseed rape since 2006. Trials are located in areas most likely to produce high pressure for the target disease(s). Varieties that are highly susceptible to the target disease(s) are grown. Generally, when more fungicide is applied, less disease will be present in a crop. The visible disease present at a range of doses can be shown as a dose-response graph (see example). Curves are published for ‘protectant’ and ‘eradicant’ situations, where applicable. If you are interested in the details behind the trials, including our research partners, then visit our guide to fungicide performance page.

Current key disease targets: Septoria tritici, yellow rust, brown rust and head blight.

Current key disease targets: Rhynchosporium, net blotch, ramularia

Note: Historic information for barley mildew is also available

Current key disease targets: Light leaf spot and phoma

Note: Historic information for oilseed rape sclerotinia is also available

• The cost of a fungicide application rises as dose increases
• Yield loss is proportional to the amount of disease present
• The appropriate fungicide dose is the point at which margin is maximised
• Doses lower than the appropriate dose reduce profit through inadequate disease control
• Doses higher than the appropriate dose reduce profit because the cost of additional fungicide outweighs the value of the extra yield
• Selection for fungicide resistance is also more likely with increasing dose – resistance management guidance states to use the minimum dose required to effectively control the target disease
• Appropriate dose can be estimated by considering disease risk factors (e.g. weather, varietal resistance, drilling date and previous cropping), grain price, fungicide cost and efficacy
• The appropriate dose varies more with disease pressure and varietal resistance than with grain price