Crunch time for decisions
Appearance of early problems forces hands
THE last week has been a week of ascochyta blight (AB) sightings in many of our chickpea paddocks.
Couple that with helicoverpa numbers in this early stages of growth and the winter season already is beset with decisions to be made about inputs and what type of inputs.
I would like to outline some of the fungicide decisions to be made.
No, not in the paddock agonising about the practical aspects, it is about the decisions concerning legality, withholding periods (WHP), spray passes allowed and other critical comments bandied around phrases of Emergency Use Permits (EUP) and Minor Crops use permit.
We are fortunate to have a system with the AVPMA regulatory body in Canberra that allows industry and in our case Pulse Australia, to make applications for a pesticide to be granted a temporary permit to be able to apply to certain crops.
This permit application is thoroughly checked out for efficacy and MRL (Maximum Residue Levels) from other world regulatory authorities by the AVPMA and is not issued on a whim of a marketing group.
It really is an emergency use and the 2016 winter for foliar diseases in our Pulse Crops highlighted how EUP actually work to the absolute best with a lot of sincere appreciation to the staff in the AVPMA.
They did a great job getting us to the point where we had available for legal use, so many EUP for fungicides.
Now these permits need to be used absolutely correctly for the disease purpose and
use pattern as well as following the WHP.
So the crops are specifically mentioned on the permit, as is the disease and the product rate.
In the critical comments below this information box, there is important things like number of allowable applications, timing, water volumes and method of application.
Next very importantly is the WHP for harvest and grazing usually.
These EUP last usually only one season and are subject to re applications in the next year, as we are doing now.
Now we have overseas trading partners that may change the MRL up or down (usually down), so we need to comply.
So do not assume that a
permit issued in 2016 is going to be automatically renewed.
The good news is that the applications for many renewals are in the system already and the AVPMA have already issued some critical product ones.
Last year we were chasing our tail all winter and things got fairly scary in those wet times with fungicides options to control rampant disease.
Fortunately for 2017, even though we have a big area of chickpeas and other pulses, the Emergency Use Permit system is in full swing and as long as we all adhere to the permit directions for use, then we should all be okay.
We have a good image overseas in all our summer and winter pulse crops and we need to keep this going.
So do not assume that a permit issued in 2016 is going to be automatically renewed. — Paul McIntosh