A New Tool for Orchardists

A New Tool for Orchardists. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

BASF has finished 3 years of research along with field trials on their new Merivon® fungicide. Nick Fassler, BASF Technical Market Manager says it’s a variation of their Priaxor™ fungicide.

FASSLER: Merivon is a slightly different ration so it also contains F500 the active ingredient in Headline® with Xemium® and initially it will be labeled on pome and stone fruits which are apple, pears, cherries and peaches.

Fassler talks about Merivon’s efficacy.

FASSLER: When you get into the Merivon product with those tree crops we see excellent control of powdery mildew, apple scab, leaf spotting in cherries so a lot of different diseases there that growers of those specialty crops face every year.

Merivon has not received registration with the EPA but they hope to see that in the first half of this year. Caren Schmidt, Ph.D., Technical Service Representative with BASF.

SCHMIDT: We focused on the diseases apple scab and powdery mildew which are very important diseases in apple production. Merivon has been shown to provide excellent protection from both of those diseases in apple production in our research over the years. We have been looking at Merivon in apple scab in conjunction with Michigan State University and basically comparing it to the current commercial standards and we’ve seen very good if not better protection with Merivon application programs compared to current commercial standards. We’re just really looking forward to Merivon.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.