The slide in strobilurin fungicide sales that occurred in the past two seasons appears to have been arrested this spring.

Strobilurins were priced aggressively this season, particularly BASF’s pyraclostrobin, AICC agronomist Patrick Stephenson said.

“It has definitely helped maintain the area.”

Syngenta fungicide product manager Matt Pickard confirmed Amistar Opti sales remained similar to last year.

“The price of Opti dropped in-season by 5-7%, partly in response to pyraclostrobin [reductions].

It definitely helped maintain sales.”

The price reductions made strobilurins pretty good value this season.

“The typical response needed to pay for them is only 0.15t/ha at current pricing.

They’re such good value it probably helped some sceptics to put them on.”

Agronomists had also been comfortable about positioning and rates, Mr Stephenson said.

“Rates are probably below half rate down to a third rate.

I’ve used them depending on variety either on the ear or flag leaf, but not at T1.”

BASF’s Andrew Jones believed triazole doses had increased.

“I haven’t got any statistics to back that up, but I expect to see some movement up on triazole doses.”

Frontier technical manager Bob Mills agreed triazole doses should show an increase.

“Possibly not at T1, because we had a dry, cold March, but the catchy weather at T2 in May should have driven growers to increase rates to get the curative kickback.”

mike.abram@rbi.co.uk