A new solution to control insects in your forage brassicas

Crop protection technology more commonly used in horticulture is now available to help farmers keep high value forage brassica crops growing well.

Flume®, the new super spreader from Nufarm, makes discrete droplets of water and insecticide flatten out and spread in a thin film all over the surface of sprayed leaves, even wrapping around the underside. Nufarm territory manager Jeff Hurst says two things can make pest control in forage brassicas quite challenging. “The first is that as the crop gets bigger, there are many places for pests to hide in, including deep inside the crown of the plant, and on the underside of the leaves that are supposed to feed your animals. That means pests are often protected from the spray, simply because it doesn’t reach them.” The second challenge is the nature of the plants themselves, Jeff says. Brassicas are notoriously hard to wet, thanks to a waxy coating on leaf surfaces. After rain, droplets of water perch like little individual bubbles on brassica leaves. Technically, these are ‘discrete’ droplets. Discrete droplets are prone to bouncing or rolling off the plant surfaces due to the angle of the leaf, movement of leaves during spraying, or if conditions are windy. This is the opposite of what you want when spraying your crop to control insects. Combining Flume with your insecticide allows the droplets to stick to the leaves and then ‘super spread’ themselves across more of the leaf surface area. “This means that more active ingredient from the insecticide will stick and spread on the leaf and get into all the hard-to-reach places where pests like to hide.” Better fungicide coverage in cereals and grass seed

Cereals and grass plants are considered difficult to wet given the erect standing nature of the plant, and the leaves can also be waxy. Adding Flume to fungicide sprays in cereals and grass seed crops will greatly improve coverage which will help prevent disease from spreading in the crop. “Most fungicides in NZ are locally systemic which means they are absorbed into the plant protecting the area they land on but are not very mobile in the plant. Therefore, the more product we can get to stick and spread on each leaf, the better protected the plant is,” Jeff says. As Flume provides significant improvement in spreading, it is important to use the correct water rates which can be 50% lower than what the crop protection product label recommends. “If standard water rates are used, the droplets can run off the plant which isn’t what we want.” Being able to use lower water rates has the added benefit of being able to spray more hectares per tank thus saving time and money. Also, important to note is that not all ‘super spreaders’ are created equal. Flume is a superior non-penetrating super spreader containing a proprietary blend of organo silicone and non-ionic adjuvants. Flume is available at your local Ruralco store. If you would like to know more, reach out to your local Ruralco Representative.

THIS PROMOTIONAL FEATURE WAS PROVIDED BY NUFARM. ®Flume is a registered trademark of Nufarm Australia Ltd.