PCAs and growers take notes on the stops of the tour of the Bayer CropScience research farm recently.
Bayer CropScience will soon be introducing a new class of chemistry that will be an alternative to imidacloprid, the company’s embattled systemic insecticide that has been implicated in honey bee deaths.
The new active ingredient is flupyradifurone. It is a systemic from the butenolide chemical class and is active on sucking insect pests.
It will be marketed by Bayer under the trade name Sivanto, according to Phil McNally, a Bayer rep who talked about the new product at Bayer’s recent field day at its research farm just east of Fresno.
About 100 PCAs and growers heard McNally called it a “bee friendly product with no bloom (application) restrictions.” He says Bayer expects to have the reduced risk product federally registered in 2015.
Biological efficacy studies conducted within the U.S. since 2007 by internal and external scientists on an array of annual and perennial crops have shown high levels of efficacy against various species of aphids, leafhoppers, psyllids, scales, thrips and whiteflies.
A unique property of Sivanto is its strong and rapid feeding cessation effect from both soil and foliar applications. It is active via ingestion and contact. It is an adult knockdown product that controls nymph and egg stages.
It is both systemic for root uptake and translaminer from foliar applications. It has minimal impact on beneficials.
Submitted for global joint review in 2012, registration is being pursued on many annual and perennial crops.
The proposed label includes a four hour re-entry interval.
It is expected to be a major part of the Bayer CropScience insecticide package as an alternative to imidaclolprid.
Imidacloprid is currently the most widely used insecticide in the world. Although it is now off patent, the primary manufacturer is Bayer CropScience. It is sold under many names.
Recent research suggests that widespread agricultural use of imidacloprid and other pesticides may be a factor in honey bee deaths called Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). The decline of honey bee colonies in Europe and North America have been observed since 2006. As a result, several countries have restricted use of imidacloprid and other neonicotinoids. Some European countries, including France, Germany and Italy, have even banned neonicotinoids, though pesticide companies vehemently defend their ecological safety and say concerns are based on inconclusive and premature science.
