Fungicide performance in cereals and oilseed rape

Our fungicide performance work provides high-quality, independent information on the relative 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.

Fungicide performance information has been generated as part of this trial series for many years:

• Wheat since 1994
• Barley since 2002
• 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 used in trials.

*Includes the fungicide performance data archive.

Note: Historic information for barley mildew is also available.

Note: Historic information for oilseed rape sclerotinia is also available.

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.

Dose-response curves

• 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 on dose-response curves in a graph
• Curves are published for ‘protectant’ and ‘eradicant’ situations, where applicable
• If you are interested in the details behind the trials, including our research partners and historic data, visit our guide to fungicide performance page

An illustration of fungicide dose response curves