Fungicide facts with Syngenta’s Lane Tredway

Golfdom spoke with Lane Tredway, Ph.D., senior technical representative, at Syngenta’s Innovation Day. Tredway gave us more details about Syngenta’s new Appear fungicide, announced at Innovation Day, and Velista fungicide, announced during the 2015 Golf Industry Show.

Appear

• Tredway and researchers are testing the new fungicide on Celebration bermudagrass at the Vero Beach, Fla., location because many superintendents in Florida are switching their fairways to that variety.

• When comparing Signature and Appear side-by-side on plots, there is a difference in turf pigmentation in favor of Appear. The difference in the Appear sample can be seen after one application, but you get the most from the product when used repeatedly. Tredway said a 14-day interval has an accumulative affect.

• The pigment affect becomes more pronounced in Appear compared to Signature after multiple applications. “By the time you have made six or eight and it’s not unheard of that superintendents make 10 applications of these types of products,” Tredway says. “You really seeing that improved color by the time you get into the main stress in July and August.”

• Along with color, Appear helps with stress tolerance by helping to protect some of the marco-molecules in the plant, like chlorophyll and other cell components,from being destroyed by UV light when the fungicide coats the surface of the leaf. “You get the most out of (Appear) during the height of the summer when you are getting a lot of very intense sunlight.”

• Although Syngenta is testing Appear on Celebration bermudagrass, Tredway said it will be used on bentgrass and Poa annua turf in the summer for the control of anthracnose, Pythium and management of summer stress.

• Appear will typically be tank-mixed with Daconil Action like previously done with Signature. The difference between Signature and Appear when each is mixed with Daconil Action is that Signature’s pigment color response will be very diluted by the combination compared to Appear.

• “Signature is the standard fungicide and Signature plus a Dacnonil product has been the backbone for bentgrass and Poa greens management for probably close to 30 years now,” Tredway says. “We upgraded that by adding the Daconil Action and upgraded it again by adding Appear. We are taking that old standard treatment there’s a lot of unique and innovative features to that formulation. So it’s not about a new or different AI, it’s about a really good formulation that has upgraded that classic chemistry.”

Velista

Velista fungicide was launched at the 2015 GIS. It was all Tredway talked about at the the show, and all he has talk about since.

• One the industry’s first succinate dehydrogenase inhibitor (SDHI), Velista — just like the rest of the products in the family — is a “really strong” dollar spot fungicide. The difference between Velista and other SDHI’s is that it can control so much more. “You name an important fungal disease that superintendents are worried about and good chance Velista is going to do an excellent job on it,” Tredway says. “So it’s really going to be a valuable tool.”

• It can be used on both warm- and cool-season grasses. “On cool-season fairways it is mainly going to be dollar spot and brown patch, does a great job on both of those. On greens it’s going to be more anthracnose, brown patch, summer patch,” Tredway says.

• Velista is the only SDHI that can control anthracnose. “A lot of superintendents are really struggling with anthracnose because it develops resistance to fungicide so quickly they are running out of options that still control dollar spot,” Tredway says.