Lychee data generation investments (ST17000 and ST16006)

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 lychee industry, the grant investment supported a Dow label registration application for Transform (Sulfoxaflor) for the control of fruit-spotting and banana-spotting bugs.

Separate to the grant funding, this investment also supported a Bayer DC-163 label registration application for the control of borers in lychee including macadamia nut borer, longicorn trunk borer, monoleptor nut borer plus Lepidoptera species.

Data generation for other applications relevant to the lychee industry was also supported by the project Generation of residue, efficacy and crop safety data for pesticide applications in horticulture crops 2017 (ST16006) which involved grant funds from an earlier around of the Agvet program, plus some levy contributions.