Biological controls are the new frontier in crop protection and FMC Corporation has made a strong commitment to expand its portfolio in that arena.
“We’ve got a number of projects in play right now that are biological controls,” said FMC portfolio manager Rick Ekins at the National Farm Machinery Show. “This is about expanding the level of control, it’s about changing the modes of action that are applied … there’s just so many directions you can go with biologicals.”
FMC launched Fracture™ last year, its first biological fungicide labeled for the prevention and control of powdery mildew, botrytis and brown rot blossom blight. “That’s specific to fruit and vegetables, grapes and strawberries in particular,” said Ekins. “We’ve had some fantastic performance out of this product…we were really able to provide a product in Fracture that gets you as close to synthetic control as you’re going to get.”
This year’s offerings from FMC in the biological market include Ethos™ XB insecticide/fungicide and Capture® LFR® Insecticide plus VGR™. “Ethos XB contains a biofungicide that colonizes root zones and provides two measures of control,” explains Ekins. “VGR is a soil amendment, it’s allowing that plant to better utilize water. It takes less water with a VGR treatment to grow the same amount of plant.”
Learn more in this interview: [wpaudio url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/zimmcomm/nfms16-fmc-ekins-biologicals.mp3″ text=”Interview with Rick Ekins, FMC on biologicals”]
2016 National Farm Machinery Show Photo Album
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