ONE OF the new 'great white hopes' for controlling disease in grain crops has come through a testing 2016 season in style.

Syngenta’s powerful SDHI fungicide, Solatenol, has had extensive trial work carried out by ADAS, Prime Ag and Teagasc, this year – all confirmed its performance as an effective T2 fungicide.

Jason Tatnell, Syngenta’s technical indication expert, commented: “Being a new active, Solatenol has been through vigorous trial work over several years, in which it has consistently proven itself in both high and low disease pressure years, across numerous field situations. The independent results this year have again confirmed this.

“The intrinsic characteristic it has, is of providing complete leaf protection and it has really shone through this year, particularly with the high disease pressures we’ve seen,” added Mr Tatnell.

“In trial work ADAS carried out this year, the direct correlation between green leaf area duration and yield response was clearly been seen.

“Solatenol outperformed competitor SDHIs in both the percentage green leaf area maintained on leaf one over a four week period, and delivered a 0.28t/ha yield average increase when compared to fluxapyroxad plus metconazole.”

Trials carried out by Prime Ag, led by Tom McCabe, which looked specifically at septoria tritici and brown rust control, found that when mixed with Bravo, it had much better control of both diseases compared to other fungicides.

“By the middle of July, this trial was showing that plots treated with Solatenol saw, on average, control of septoria tritici at 75%, with brown rust up to 85% control, which was substantially above the control achieved by other fungicides trialled. This is really promising to see, considering the season we’ve had,” he said.

Testing conditions in Irish field trials was also a sound testing ground for the new actives and in 2016, research body, Teagasc, focussed on the importance of spray timings and which actives performed best together. “From the results we’ve seen, it has really highlighted how applying a powerful SDHI at T2 can show real yield benefits," pointed out Mr Tatnell

“By applying bixafen plus prothioconazole at T1, followed by Solatenol at T2, a yield increase of 0.49t/ha was recorded, compared to bixafen plus prothioconazole followed by fluxapyroxad plus epoxiconazole."