Third season completed running Potato Partners innovation site at Pukekohe
The third season running the Potato Partners innovation site in Pukekohe has been completed by the Syngenta team.
Paul Hassan, Technical Services Lead for Syngenta, says: “The multi-plot format of the site enables us to showcase the features and benefits of new and already registered potato products at the same site. This creates a lot of productive discussions with those who visit.”
Syngenta Territory Manager Andrew McIntosh was involved with the site for the first time. “It’s a great opportunity to show how our products perform against other options under a good amount of pressure.”
In one plot this season, Boxer Gold® herbicide was used alone and with various mixing partners. “There was a good level of weed pressure in the untreated, control area, in stark contrast to the treated areas,” Andrew says. “We also observed the performance of Boxer Gold alone or in combinations on bare earth and with a crop, and saw weed control was further enhanced by crop shading in these blocks.”
Another area highlighted Miravis® and Score® EC for early blight control. “Earlier in the year Syngenta published updated guidelines for early blight resistance management in potatoes, so we wanted to show the products used as per these guidelines. Early blight pressure was high, and we saw the benefit of using Score upfront to clean up any latent infection in the crop before starting to use Miravis to prevent further infection.”
They also looked at a new potato tuber treatment being developed for seedborne diseases. Amistar® fungicide was applied as an in-furrow treatment which, when compared to the untreated area, showed it protected the crop against Rhizoctonia and silver scurf through the critical crop emergence period to improve overall marketable yield at harvest.
Talk with your local Fruitfed Supplies Technical Horticultural Representative for more information about these and other Syngenta products.
ACVM registration numbers: Amistar® #P004840, Boxer Gold® #P009706, Miravis® #P009442, Score® #P003900. Read the registered label before use.
