Tully banana grower embraces new chemistry to tackle disease

The reason is Mr Flegler, who has 320 hectares of bananas in conjunction with his brother, knew from past experience how important it is to keep on top of disease in the banana business.

“When you grow bananas in Tully there are a few diseases that really have an impact on production if they’re not in check, such as yellow Sigatoka, which is a banana leaf fungal disease and it is a constant problem, it never sleeps,” he says.

“We do a lot of physical man hours de-leafing when yellow Sigatoka is bad, but you’ve got to do it regularly, which really costs a lot, so chemicals that stop the disease really give you an advantage – the chemical can be expensive but not as expensive as the labour.

“If you put on a really good chemical that can hold it at bay for longer, you do save a lot of labour and you can lift production because you simply have more leaves and bigger bananas, so that’s why I embrace new chemicals for leaf diseases.”

After the introduction of Luna^® Privilege fungicide from Bayer Crop Science in 2015, Mr Flegler says the decision to use the new chemistry on all his bananas was an easy one.

“I use Luna Privilege regularly in my fungicide aerial spraying program and it’s certainly been one of the major factors why my bananas have had very little leaf disease for the last two years,” he says.

“I’ve had really good production - plenty of leaf cover, good bunches and I haven’t been getting much sunburn, so investing in Luna Privilege to control disease, which results in healthier plants, makes financial sense.

“The last couple of banana seasons have been pretty tough, with low prices and not a great deal of demand for the fruit – while there have been some big quantities of fruit, generally people just aren’t paying a lot for bananas.

“However, even though it’s an expensive initial application, Luna Privilege is a lot cheaper than the labour it takes to chop out leaf diseases by hand - in a tough year, you try to reduce costs and I’ve really found that Luna Privilege has lowered my biggest bill, which by far is manual labour.”

Mr Flegler says a good relationship with his aerial spray contractor, Jason Rodda from Airborne Group Australia, means application of Luna Privilege is a smooth operation.

“We only apply Luna Privilege by air, as it’s registered for aerial application, so in conjunction with Jason and the leaf disease independent monitorer, we work out when’s the best time in the Luna Privilege application window to spray and we apply it accordingly,” Mr Flegler explains.

“In the future, Luna Privilege is definitely going to be included in our aerial spray program, I think it has been value for money.

“As long as the strong adherence to the application window is kept up, Luna Privilege is going to have longevity in the banana industry, it makes good financial sense, which is the bedrock of farming really.”