BACK TO BASICS From salt on mushrooms to sunflower oil on tomatoes, where do you stand legally on using basic substances?
All growers will know that the number of plant protection products available to them is dwindling. Even with the huge effort we put into finding effective plant protection products and securing approvals for them, there are still crop sectors that struggle to manage pests, diseases and weeds effectively. As a result of this, we have in recent years seen growers becoming more interested in alternative substances and we get many queries from growers wanting to check the approvals status of some of these.
From a legal perspective, the situation is fairly clear – any formulated product used for plant protection purposes must be authorised as a plant protection product and therefore have a MAPP (Ministerially Approved Pesticide Product) number. Growers wishing to control pests, diseases or weeds should make sure that only products with the appropriate registration number are used. There are, however, other substances which could still be considered for plant protection
purposes. These substances are called ‘basic substances’. These are defined as substances which are not predominantly used as a plant protection product but may be of value for plant protection and for which the economic interest of applying for a full approval is limited. Basic substances are approved at a European level and applications for their approval are handled by the European Commission (EC). Twenty basic substances are currently approved by the EC for plant protection (see Table opposite).
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20 AHDB Grower PROTECT
