Dealing With Fungicide Resistance

Specialty crop growers across the Northwest are facing an escalating challenge; fungicide resistance.  Tye Shauck with BASF said it’s a difficult hurdle for grape, stone fruit and almond growers, to overcome, because there are only so many tools in the toolbox to effectively manage many of these pathogens.

“We have a limited amount of FRAC groups in our toolbox that we can utilize to control these pathogens," Shauck said.  "So whenever we get in a situation where we've got a resistance issue, essentially, we're losing one of those tools, or one of those tools is much less effective than it used to be, right? So, we're taking something out of our toolbox, which makes it much more difficult to manage, you know, that pathogen and allow that grower to produce the yield and quality of fruit that they need.” 

So, what’s a grower to do?

Shauck said Northwest growers should look at integrated disease management strategies to help control resistant fungi.

“Luckily, we do have, other options, cultural management options that we can utilize to help manage some of these diseases like powdery mildew as well," Shauck said.  "So, when I think of that, I think about cultural practices such as helping improve the airflow through the canopy of the orchard or the vineyard. A lot of times these diseases really thrive under high humidity conditions. So anything we can do to improve that airflow and reduce that humidity in the canopy can help out as well as controlling suckers on the base of the plant or weeds within that orchard or vineyard that sometimes can serve as alternate host for some of these pathogens to really kind of get started and then produce an inoculum that can move up into the canopy of that crop.”

Shauck added products of Cevya fungicide can also be a big help for Northwest grape and stone fruit growers.

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