EverGol Energy delivers early crop establishment in Victoria
About
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Category
- Grower Stories
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Date
16 October, 2020
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Location
Northern Victoria
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About
Category
- Grower Stories
Date
16 October, 2020
Location
Northern Victoria
To get early establishment in his cropping program at Boort in northern Victoria, Giles Cunningham knew he needed to get on top of key cereal diseases like crown rot and rhizoctonia.
Managing the Daybreak Cropping operation Catumnul Farms, Giles turned to EverGol® Energy from Bayer in 2019, when it was first registered as a seed treatment for use in the Australian market.
Over the last two seasons, Daybreak Cropping have used the fungicidal seed treatment over the entire Catumnal Farms 3,500-hectare cereal program, to enable early crop establishment and develop crop competition.
“We see issues with crown rot and rhizoctonia, as our main inhibiting factor here for early crop establishment and so we find it's an easy insurance policy to have a robust seed treatment to mitigate risk at the start of the season,” Giles says.
“Having used PREDICTA® B tests to identify, rhizoctonia and crown rot as risks in our cropping program, we could see EverGol Energy had a fit.”
As Matt Westgarth, Bayer Business Development Manager for Broadacre in Eastern Australia, explains, EverGol Energy delivers a number of novel tools for farmers.
“It's registered in wheat and barley as a seed treatment but also in-furrow, which is quite unique for a seed treatment,” Matt says.
“The team at Daybreak Cropping are very interested in collaborating with innovators and driving profitability through the use of new technologies and we’ve seen a really good fit for EverGol Energy in their cropping systems.
“We've had a relationship with them for a couple of years now, since they got established in the broadacre cropping sector, and we're excited to be a part of their journey, to drive profitability and productivity across their business.”
EverGol Energy combines the disease control of penflufen with the systemic activity of prothioconazole and metalaxyl, delivering broad spectrum control of smuts and bunt, and suppression of rhizoctonia, pythium and crown rot.
“We started using EverGol Energy for that wide of control of disease, and the three modes of action were quite attractive to us,” Giles explains.
“We've seen a history here of crown rot so that was a really good start for us to use EverGol Energy, and then there are its other broad spectrum uses with rhizoctonia and smuts and bunt.”
Giles reports the seed treatment process was easy, with the product flowing on to the seed well, and no crop safety issues, as shown through a consistent emergence in the treated cereals.
With in-crop rainfall at the Boort property below average in 2019, the addition of EverGol Energy to help with early seedling emergence meant the crop made the most of an early break in May and then handled well the subsequent dry conditions.
“2019 ended up being a really good year for our cereals, resulting in good yield and quality,” Giles says. “The other crops did seem to struggle a bit later in the year, but the cereals seemed to really hold on, and I think that was because they got a great start.”
“The cereals had really good early root development, so they were really able to access the moisture that was there, and make the most of that good start through our use of EverGol Energy.
“We did have a drier end to the season and the cereals were really able to hold on, so we've seen some results at harvest time that were beyond our expectations.”
The results from 2019 have convinced the Daybreak Cropping team to keep using EverGol Energy in their cropping program, with the seed treatment being used across their whole wheat and barley program in 2020.
EverGol® and Predicta® are Registered Trademarks of the Bayer Group
About
Category
- Grower Stories
Date
16 October, 2020
Location
Northern Victoria
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