T3. Tailor product choice to match your crop challenges.

There are essentially three main disease challenges in cereals at the T3 timing. Understanding which of these are relevant to your crop will be key to cost effective disease management and extending green leaf retention.

Brown Rust

Brown rust is typically associated with warm conditions at this time of year and current weather conditions are ideal for disease development and spread.

Good, effective management of Brown rust can be achieved cost-effectively with the use of tebuconazole.

Apply 125g/ha tebuconazole (0.5L Clayton Tebucon™ 250EW), and make sure to check if you are growing varieties on the recommended list with key weaknesses to this disease.

Fusarium Head Blight

The disease is closely associated with a number of risk factors; rainfall at flowering significantly increases risk of infection whilst previous cropping with maize is also a major risk factor.

Whilst a number of fusarium species can cause FHB and associated yield loss, Fusarium avenaceum, F. culmorum and F. graminearum are the pathogens associated with mycotoxin limit exceedances. Microdochium nivale is also widespread and a major cause of yield loss through FHB, although it does not produce mycotoxins.

Product choice and timing are key to effective management of this disease. Fungicides should be applied at mid-flowering GS BBCH 63- 65. High rates of tebuconazole will effectively control fusarium species whilst the addition of prothioconazole is required for control of M. nivale. Clayton Navaro™ makes an ideal choice applied at 0.75-1.0L.

Septoria

T3 timing presents an opportunity to top up protection against S. tritici. Unlike all other older triazoles, prothioconazole still offers useful activity against this disease.

In a high-pressure situation applying fungicides based on newer chemistry will deliver more activity against S. tritici but check that products permit application at this growth stage and have activity against FHB.

Whilst some T3 sprays are applied at mid-flowering GS63-65, sprays can also be applied earlier at GS59 to help protect green leaf area sooner, and at this earlier timing, adding in a multi-site such as folpet to azoles can be beneficial for added Septoria control and resistance management purposes.

For further information, please take a look at our latest technical bulletin.