Sharpen your pencils, control costs, and make other moves to ensure profits in 2016, even though they may be razor thin. That’s what farmers are working toward this winter, and one question revolves around the use of fungicides. Does the cost provide a return? Chris Reat is with FMC.
“It’s so important if you think about going into this season where we may be challenged with production and challenged with commodity pricing, when a farmer gets to a point where he has to make a decision about fungicide he’s already got some costs into his crop. He’s already got fertilizer out. He’s already worked the land, the fuel costs and the seed costs. What the fungicide does is really help that final step to make sure you’re maximizing production on that acre. When you see the advantage you get in yields with a Preemptor application, it pays off for farmers to utilize that.”
Preemptor™ SC Fungicide is new this year from FMC and it provides full-season fungicidal benefits in as little as one early application.
“We’re really excited about it because it brings some unique offerings to farmers in the marketplace. It’s a 2-way, 2 modes of action so it provides good prevention against resistance building up for diseases, and the 2 modes of action provide for a systemic use and very long acting, season long control of diseases, so really exciting.”
This is the initial entry into the fungicide business. Reat explains why now for FMC.
“We just had to find the right compound, the right one that brought enough value. FMC is going to bring in those high end products, those high opportunity products, and this one we found is that type of opportunity that represents what we want to bring value to farmers with, so Preemptor is going to be a very nice combination. It widens out the application window for farmers so it really should provide good advantages for farmers, whether they’re going over early, late, whether they’re going with a ground rig or aerial. We have all those options in corn, soy and wheat.”
Other new products are Ethos™ XB Insecticide/Fungicide, offering in-furrow protection against both insects and disease, and Capture® LFR® Insecticide Plus VGR™ Soil Amendment for full spectrum insect control, increased water efficiency and better nutrient availability. Both of those new products contain biological ingredients.