New supplies of the fungicide Bravo Ultrex should be arriving at Saskatchewan farm supply outlets this week to help control a pestilence of pulse crop disease.
Health Canada last week approved Saskatchewan’s request for emergency registration of the fungicide made by Zeneca.
The province made the request after it became apparent supplies of Bravo 500 would run short to protect the province’s 4.8 million acres of pulse crops. Particularly endangered are 700,000 acres of chickpeas, but there is also pressure on lentils.
“We’ve had high disease pressure this season from the ascochyta blight,” said Penny Pearce, of Saskatchewan Agriculture.
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“The weather conditions have favored it. All the rainfall we’ve had, especially in early July, that really increased the amount of disease we had.”
The strains of ascochyta seem to be more aggressive than in the past, she added.
This disease pressure and massively increased acreage meant supplies of the registered product, Bravo 500, were quickly disappearing from store shelves.
Many chickpea producers have already completed two fungicide applications. But it is a long season crop and a third application might be needed in some cases.
Pearce said allowing pulse crop growers to substitute Bravo Ultrex, which has the same active ingredient as Bravo 500, should make some of the latter available for potato growers. The emergency registration for Bravo Ultrex did not cover its use on potatoes.
Manitoba did not apply for emergency registration because it has a much smaller acreage of chickpeas and lentils, the crop is more mature and there were better supplies of Bravo 500 because of the big potato crop, said Gary Platford of Manitoba Agriculture.
