Belanty’s Performance Out on the Farmlands

Belanty®, the new generation demethylation inhibitor (DMI) fungicide from BASF, has now been through its second season of use with New Zealand apples and pears.

Like all DMI fungicides, Belanty brought protective and curative action to wrest control from black spot and powdery mildew. Belanty’s superior formulation means the active ingredient, mefentrifluconazole, rapidly moves into the wax layers of treated fruitlets and foliage where it is protected from wash-off (rainfast once dry) and UV breakdown. Belanty’s active ingredient then slowly and steadily metres out of these ‘reservoirs’ (acropetal and translaminar movement in leaves) to give prolonged protection. Note that Belanty doesn’t move from treated leaves into leaves that weren’t sprayed, or leaves which emerged after application. These must be protected by other fungicide applications.

The curative activity of Belanty, if applied within 96 hours of an infection starting, effectively helps to control any black spot fungi that may have germinated and started to infect apples. Growers have the option to partner a super-protectant fungicide, e.g. Sercadis* in front of forecast black spot infection events to provide forward cover into the event and then Belanty after the event to reachback (up to 96 hours) to provide cover back into the event.

Applications of single site fungicides such as Sercadis and Belanty should be tank-mixed with fungicides from other mode of action groups, e.g. Polyram® DF and Delan®, to help prevent resistance developing to single-site fungicides.

Growers who have used Belanty over the past two seasons report that it has fitted well as the DMI of choice early in the season to meet exporter requirements. Ed Whyte, an orchardist in Clive, says it has performed well in his Envy, a variety that can be prone to powdery mildew and russet. Good control was achieved with a tight programme and Belanty delivered the desired results.

Belanty comes in a handy 10L Ecopak (which has 20% less plastic than a standard plastic drum) and can be recycled, along with its cap, through Agrecovery.