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Greenhouse Grower Notes: May 2007 2

January 18, 2008  By Graeme Murphy


Setting Minor Use priorities at annual Ottawa conference.  New products are discussed, contacts made,
and pesticides of future interest identified

I have written before about the Minor Use pesticide priority-setting meeting that is held every year in Ottawa, so I won’t belabour the point by going into too much detail about its history and purpose. Suffice to say, it is a meeting of all agricultural sectors to discuss their minor use pesticide needs and to select a few priority products for the Pest Management Centre (part of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada) to work on and submit for registration.

It would be nice to have all our industry’s priorities accepted by the PMC, but the reality is that there is a limit to the money available to do this work, which is often very expensive. Also, there are many different agricultural crops that fall into the minor use category, so the priorities are shared.

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The 2006 meeting was held from March 27-29. The greenhouse floriculture industry went to the meeting with three priority products in mind – a herbicide, an insecticide, and a fungicide.

• The herbicide of interest was Mogeton (quinoclamine), for liverwort control in perennials and other long-term crops (Registrant-Chemtura)

• The insecticide was actually an acaricide, Pylon (chlorfenapyr) for control of mites (BASF)

• The fungicide was Switch (a dual active product containing cyprodinil and fludioxinil) for control of powdery mildew (Syngenta).

To cut a long story short, we were successful in having Pylon accepted as an “A” priority, which means that the PMC will submit that product for registration to the PMRA and address any work that needs to be done. This is good news for the industry since we are currently in need of new miticides, and Pylon is effective against cyclamen mite and broad mite as well as two-spotted mite. On the downside, it can also affect biological controls, so its use may be limited for growers on a biocontrol program.

The fungicide Switch was the last one eliminated in the convoluted process to get to the final 10 priorities for PMC to work on. As a consolation prize, Switch was designated as a “B+”, meaning that if for any reason any of the first 10 could not proceed (which has happened on a number of occasions), then it would become one of the “A” priorities. In the meantime, in discussions with the registrant Syngenta, the industry has agreed to work on this product outside of the formal priority-setting process.

The other product of interest, Mogeton, did not move forward as a priority. However, this product was also put forward by the outdoor ornamentals industry, a sector that would have many overlaps in terms of crop production and use patterns for this product. Discussions between both greenhouse and outdoor ornamentals industries and the registrant Chemtura, suggests that we can look at how we can move this product forward from an industry level.

As with the previous priority setting meetings (this was the fourth), there were enormous benefits in having a greenhouse ornamentals presence in the room. Obviously, the process itself and the successful inclusion of Pylon as an “A” priority speaks for itself. However, the opportunity to meet with all the registrants is also invaluable. This is probably the only time when so many participants in the pesticide registration are present in one room. New products are discussed, contacts made, and pesticides of future interest to our industry are identified. The backroom and corridor meetings are as much a part of the process, and equally valuable, as the main meeting.

Graeme Murphy is the greenhouse floriculture IPM specialist with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs at Vineland.
• 905-562-4141, ext. 106, or graeme.murphy@ontario.ca


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