Are fungicides more harmful than insecticides

cquick

Member
BASE UK Member
Depends who you talk to as to what you use, not sure there is an exact science too it yet.
I bought animal grade but the artic tanker had been delivering to a food factory before me. Same stuff.
I use molasses with every spray as a general food source for the soil and leaf microbes (and I am also adding a few g per ha of gluconacetobacter diazotrophicus in some areas as a trial), as a sticker for the chemical, and for the small amount of nutrition it provides.

For what it costs it doesn't have to do much, but qualitatively my crops seem to just look better after using it. I have no hard data but I'm happy to go by feel with these small inputs
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Applying anything that kills fungi to a soil you're trying to improve the balance of bacteria to fungi is always going to seem counter productive! The big BUT here is that to be truly sustainable, first you have to make a profit and the highest margins in conventional crop production come from a fairly high input programme of nitrogen which then makes the plants more susceptible to fungal disease.

CTL was not good for soil life, though carbendazim was worse, hence the green keeper usage as above.

www.mdpi.com%2F2077-0472%2F11%2F9%2F893%2Fpdf&usg=AOvVaw0qat6SVgYMayhGOmJFUMbV
 

willy

Member
Mixed Farmer
Location
Rutland
Totally agree, but the big question for me is where is the optimum use vs detrimental effect. Something I think we will have to find out ourselves.
 

Brisel

Member
Arable Farmer
Location
Midlands
Totally agree, but the big question for me is where is the optimum use vs detrimental effect. Something I think we will have to find out ourselves.

I'll try and dig up some research on current fungicides & soil life effects later. At least we do still have some choice in products!

In the meantime, all I can think of is to try and reduce the amount of product hitting the soil. Not easy in T0 and T1 where there is a lot of soil exposed. At least later on you can use angled nozzles to target the upper canopy, as long as you're not wanting to target stem base disease or have a thin crop with small tillers.

You always give such a balanced view @Brisel. Nobody sets out to be detrimental to there soils. At least with fungicides we get black and white results in most years. Which is more than can be said about biostimulants.

Thank you. I hate to see the basics get lost in the search for something more advanced. Biostimulants do show a bit of MOIC in low input programmes. CULTAN does at least try to avoid the big hits of lush nitrates that cause the disease problems, even if it's hard to actually practice in the real world at scale.
 

Northern territory

Member
Livestock Farmer
I'll try and dig up some research on current fungicides & soil life effects later. At least we do still have some choice in products!

In the meantime, all I can think of is to try and reduce the amount of product hitting the soil. Not easy in T0 and T1 where there is a lot of soil exposed. At least later on you can use angled nozzles to target the upper canopy, as long as you're not wanting to target stem base disease or have a thin crop with small tillers.



Thank you. I hate to see the basics get lost in the search for something more advanced. Biostimulants do show a bit of MOIC in low input programmes. CULTAN does at least try to avoid the big hits of lush nitrates that cause the disease problems, even if it's hard to actually practice in the real world at scale.
Have talked to a few agronomist recently who’ve been around a bit and speak of a product called fulcrum which was around 90’s, 2000’s I think. Good margin but limited benefits, think it was molasses based.
 

PSQ

Member
Arable Farmer
CULTAN does at least try to avoid the big hits of lush nitrates that cause the disease problems, even if it's hard to actually practice in the real world at scale.

Had a discussion recently about big doses of ammonium sulphate (as per 'cultan') and anecdotal evidence points towards the huge amounts of sulphate having had a seriously detrimental effect on soil pH and cropping.

Applying 210kg/N (for easy maths) using ammonium sulphate would require a tonne per hectare of solid equivalent 21% N ammonium sulphate per year, and if the often repeated maxim that AS neutralises it's own weight in lime, then it's easy to see why pH could quickly become a serious issue. But we'd need an impartial (non salesman) soil scientist to set the record straight.
 

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Red Tractor drops launch of green farming scheme amid anger from farmers

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As reported in Independent


quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

read the TFF thread here: https://thefarmingforum.co.uk/index.php?threads/gfc-was-to-go-ahead-now-not-going-ahead.405234/
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