What was it all about? 

The generation of pesticide residue, efficacy and crop safety data is required to support label registration and minor use permit applications made to the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA) which, when approved, provide access to safe and effective chemicals for the management of pests, weeds and diseases.

In May 2018, Hort Innovation announced the securing of more than $1 million in assistance grants under the Federal Government’s Access to Industry Uses of Agricultural and Veterinary (Agvet) Chemicals program. This funding was used, along with levy contributions, to generate the data required for a range of registration and minor use applications across a variety of horticulture crops through the project Generation of data for pesticide applications in horticulture crops 2018 (ST17000).

For the vegetable industry, the grant investment supported…

• A Bayer label registration application for Luna Privilege (fluopyram) for the control of Sclerotinia in leafy vegetables including lettuce leaf, mustard, cress, silverbeet, fennel, Chinese cabbage and kale
• A Syngenta label registration application for Amistar Xtra (azoxystrobin + cyproconazole) for the control of turcicum leaf blight in sweet corn
• A Bayer DC-143 label registration application for the control of light brown apple moth, green looper and Helicoverpa in stalk and stem vegetable crops (with data including rhubarb, artichoke and celery)
• A BASF label registration application for Verseys (afidopyropen) for the control of green peach aphid in legume vegetables including green beans, snow peas and sugar snap peas
• A ISK label registration application for MainMan (flonicamid) for the control of onion thrips and western flower thrips in bulb vegetables.

Separate to the grant funding, the vegetable levy supported…

• A new permit application for cyazofamid for the control of Phytophthora soil fungus in parsley
• An AgNova curcubits crop group label registration application for Zampro (ametoctradin + dimethomorph), for the control of downy mildew in zucchini and cucumber
• A Syngenta label registration application for azoxystrobin + difenoconazole for the control of Alternaria leaf blight in parsley and Sclerotinia rot in carrots
• A Syngenta label registration application for pydiflumetofen for the control of early blight and Cerospora leaf spot in celery
• A Syngenta label registration application for sedaxane + fludloxonll for the control of Rhizoctonia in beetroot
• A BASF label registration application for Verseys (afidopyropen) for the control of aphids in bulb vegetables including leek, for the control of corn aphid in sweet corn, and for the control of green peach aphid in stalk and stem vegetables including rhubarb and artichoke.

Data generation for other applications relevant to the vegetable industry was also supported by the projects Generation of data for permit pesticide applications in horticulture crops (ST16006) and Generation of residue data for permit applications 2017 (MT17012).