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Resistance management strategy just one of the benefits of Infopest

BY MICHAEL BARTHOLOMEW | REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT OFFICER, VEGETABLESWA

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INFOPEST

WHAT DOES IT DO AGRICULTURAL AND VETERINARY CHEMICAL DATABASE

WHO WOULD USE IT

GROWERS

THE COST

$55 + GST ANNUALLY

MORE INFORMATION

INFOPEST.COM.AU

INFOPEST IS GROWCOM’S online agricultural and veterinary chemical database. With the display of labels approved by the Australian Pesticides and Veterinary Medicines Authority (APVMA), plus marketed product labels and safety data sheets, Infopest offers a valuable alternative to the APVMA’s PubCRIS. It is often regarded as a more robust and user-friendly alternative.

Available as an annual subscription, Infopest allows subscribers to search for products and permits approved by the APVMA in their crop or animal situation to treat pests, weeds, and diseases as appropriate. Infopest displays the CropLife resistance management classifications or modes of action; these can be used to determine a resistance management strategy with chemicals that are registered or permitted for use in any given situation. It is a reliable source of safety datasheets that need to be produced for auditing purposes with workplace health and safety and lists both permits and product labels in the one search result.

Infopest’s data shows users the product dose rates, re-entry periods, withholding periods, states where the use is registered, and the system allows users to save favourite searches to save time. Search results can be exported to Excel to enable further Infopest is Growcom’s online agricultural and veterinary chemicaldatabase. manipulation as required. Options for searching the database include by host, pest, product, chemical and dealer with the choice to undertake a problem search that has both host and pest at once.

FIGURE 1. INFOPEST DATABASE SEARCH FIELD

Example:

Say you are growing rhubarb for the first time. After some testing, you confirm that there are the beginning signs of a downy mildew infestation beginning to set in after some early May rains. To determine what chemicals are registered for controlling downy mildew in rhubarb, you would navigate to the ‘problem’ tab of Infopest and where it says ‘host’ insert ‘rhubarb’ and where it says, ‘pest name’ insert ‘downy mildew’. Then when your result appears (often there will be more than one if there is a pre-, during or post-application window), tick the box to the left of the results relevant to your problem as demonstrated in Figure 1. Once you do that you are met with 4 more tabs that light up in green: • Products — Shows a list of products and permits for the inputted scenario. A powerful view that allows you to sort by registration status, registered state, active constituent, mode of action (MoA), application type, withholding periods, dangerous goods class, rain-fastness and strength. This view also provides you with easy access to a label “L,” safety data sheet “S” and a marketed label

“M” per product. • Components — Shows you all the active constituents and MoAs registered for the problem.

This is perfect for rotating out different MoAs for Integrated Pest

Management. • MRLs — Shows you the Maximum

Residue Limits for each active constituent. This includes those set by the APVMA, Food Standards

Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ) and Food and Agricultural

Organisation Codex. • Uses — Shows the user an easy breakdown of the registration status, product required, the application rate and withholding periods aggregated by state registered.

Infopest is available as an annual subscription. 10% discount

As a special deal for vegetablesWA members, the first 50 people to register with the code WAveg10 will receive a 10% discount for the first year.

Usually priced at $55 inc. GST annually, now $49.50 for the first 50 vegetablesWA members who use this code.

MORE INFORMATION

For more information go to infopest.com.au Subscription is via the website infopest.com.au and selecting ‘Infopest Subscription.’