Chemical solutions for farm problems are more likely to be fewer in the future. Farmers are very conscious of the loss of actives such as chlorpyrifos (Dursban), which left us with no control option for leather-jackets.
Everyone is aware of the great difficulties that glyphosate encountered achieving its limited five-year registration. And we face the inevitable loss of many of our current triazole actives and others as we move forward.
Growers may be less aware of the pressures and rumours around the morpholines and chlorothalonil. While it does not appear to be imminent, the loss of fenpropimorph and fenpropidin (Corbel and Tern) – important mildewicides for the control of existing mildew infection – would result in the loss of at least seven commercial products from the market and leave us with little ability to control established mildew infections.
Mildew is an important problem in all crops, but especially in oats and wheat. If we have to rely on the use of preventative products such as Flexity (proquinazid) and Talius (metrofenone), this would inevitably involve increased costs, coupled with increased risk of further resistance development.
Fewer actives for protection
Loss of actives represents a real problem for producers, but loss of families is even more important.
We depend on the ability to mix chemical families with different modes of action to help prevent the buildup of resistance to our fungicides, herbicides and insecticides. We must all be conscious of the fact that resistance is ubiquitous and management is the only real tool that we can use to prevent the buildup of undesirable populations of fungi, weeds or insects.
For advisers and growers, that necessitates access to actives from different families of chemistry. These choices have been dramatically reduced in recent times and they will be reduced further as legislative requirements intensify.
The eventual introduction of the definition of an endocrine disruptor seems likely to remove very many actives from the market as they come due for re-registration in the years ahead.
If, as previously suggested, we only have access to prothioconazole and all the other triazoles are removed, how can it alone be protected into the future?
Teagasc has been recommending a policy of alternating triazole actives to try to optimise control efficacy for the past few years, but this may soon not be an option. Indeed, what can we use to protect SDHIs or strobilurins? What will we have available to help protect the few new actives and families that are hopefully coming to the market in 2020 or thereabouts?
Septoria is now showing reduced sensitivity to all of the main fungicide families used to control it in Ireland.
The glyphosate debacle
Perhaps the biggest threat to the future of tillage farming in this part of the world was encountered in the glyphosate debacle.
Virtually all credible official independent bodies had ruled it safe and yet consumer bodies pushed an agenda of danger and falsehood. We must be aware that this approach may not stop with glyphosate alone.
Already we are seeing politics interfering with the registration of potential new actives that are badly needed in the sector and this situation is only going to get worse.
While we are still told that the major chemical R&D companies continue to invest in new chemistry, the pipeline of new actives is down to a trickle for Europe. Why would any commercial organisation invest a number of hundred millions of euro to produce a new active that could fall at any one of hundreds of hurdles along the way? Add to this the fact that we have seen a number of recent situations where approved products, already in the market, had to be withdrawn.
This is hardly a commercial environment which promotes investment and return to shareholders, so it is hardly surprising that the huge companies are looking to more straightforward markets.
Rationalisation
Given the huge investment cost required for a new active (over €300m) in virtually any market, it is not surprising to see the many expansion acquisitions that have taken place in recent years.
We saw Monsanto try to buy Syngenta, only to be taken over itself by Bayer. ChemChina since purchased Syngenta and Dow CropScience has merged with DuPont/Pioneer. Research and commercial capacity in crop genetics is certainly one driver behind these moves, but the ever-increasing costs of ensuring environmental safety is another.
We in agriculture should not complain about meaningful product safety requirements. We rely on the safety of what we produce to supply product into the food chain.
Farmers are also consumers and, more than most others, they want a safe and healthy environment in which to live. But let good science evaluate what is safe, not political whims.
Rationalisation itself comes with a cost. As these giants join, they are obliged to siphon off certain products or facilities so as not to create a monopoly situation in various markets. This means that products and actives that have long been associated with Company X may now become the property of Company Y.
This may take a bit of getting used to, but it may also see actives go to smaller companies that may not be in a position to defend their registration at some point in the future as the cost continues to soar.
We are possibly nearing the end of the agrochemical era as things stand. Fewer new actives and the growing ability of nature to develop resistance are the major catalysts for this comment. But food will still be needed and other technologies are likely to be developed.
Advances in biological control techniques continue. While these are making good progress in enclosed cropping, achieving control of a target organism in the open is a far greater challenge.
So far, it seems that most of these work in theory, but not necessarily in practice. But there will be solutions found in this arena, at least for a limited number of problems.
The other technologies that we will depend on sit in the plant breeding arena. Plant breeders have benefited greatly from the research of the past few decades, which was predominantly funded through GMO royalties in crops where a return was possible.
This knowledge and the techniques that it generated are not confined to GM crops. If these new technologies are allowed in the EU, they may offer considerable potential to use plant genetics to manage a number of our current challenges.
GMO concerns
The GMO debate continues to manifest itself in different ways.
Some markets are beginning to question the full extent of the diet our animals are consuming and we do import a significant amount of GM soya bean meal and maize.
Pressure is building for full traceability along the supply chain and not just the fact that our animals are out on grass most of the time. But deciding to pander to this requirement needs serious consideration.
The immediate reaction is to see such a move as good for Irish tillage because it can potentially increase the demand for native products.
But non-GM does not necessarily mean native product and if we continue to lose chemical tools, we will increasingly depend on plant breeders and these new technologies to provide workable solutions.
The problem in the EU is that gene editing technologies like CRISPER CAS9 are currently controlled under the GM legislative framework.
If the use of gene-editing technologies is legally allowed in the EU, there is always a danger that these clean technologies will be demonised as the new GMO. So we need to have serious consideration of where the balance of benefit lies for Ireland in this debate.
Typical raised mildew lesions on a wheat leaf will be very difficult to control if we lose the morpholines.
Resistance
One of the main requirements of these new technologies for tillage is to provide genetic tools for disease and pest resistance.
This in itself is no small ask, but as knowledge grows of the function of individual genes, breeders are better able to target the production of multigene resistance systems. These may still not confer total resistance, but they could still provide useful resistance that should prove to be stubborn and durable over time.
We in Ireland already know that we need these new tools. We continue to witness decreasing efficacy in the control of septoria and ramularia in particular and we run the risk of losing other actives that are essential for specific uses.
But breeders still do not have access to these tools to give us a sporting chance of staying ahead of nature in this battle.
We have already witnessed the lowering of septoria sensitivity to SDHI chemistry, which is the last highly active fungicide family currently available against this disease.
But lowering is not failure and we will hope that we will still have sufficient activity at field level to provide effective control in 2018. But the research centres have already shown us what seems to be inevitable.
We look forward to the arrival of new fungicide actives from new families of chemistry with activity against septoria and other diseases in the near future.
However, for as long as we have limited families of chemistry to protect one another, we cannot look forward to durable chemical control into the medium or long term.
We have been talking about knock-down resistance in grain aphids for a number of years now, but a second resistance mechanism (metabolic resistance) has also been confirmed.
This increases the challenge of aphid control, especially for BYDV prevention, and this is likely to be further increased by what seems to be the imminent loss of clothianidin, the active ingredient of Redigo Deter, which has proven very useful in the prevention of autumn infection, especially on early-sown crops.
Neonics
Clothianidin is one of the family of neonicotinoid insecticides that has been in the firing line in the EU in recent years.
While it is a seed dressing and might be regarded as providing low or no risk with good label adherence, the fact is that it is still under attack and may not be defended by its producer Bayer.
So if Deter is withdrawn at the end of this year, the only real option open to growers for BYDV prevention is a pyrethroid insecticide and we already know that some proportion of the population is already resistant to that family.
We have been awaiting the introduction of the new Dow insecticide to help add variety to our control options, but it has, thus far, not been cleared for use that early in the season (currently GS39).
However, Dow has submitted efficacy and other data for its Isoclast insecticide and it hopes to have the early season registration clearance in the very near near future.
New control pathways
One of the big changes taking place in crop science is an improving understanding of the biological mechanisms used to target or protect individual species.
Plant and pathology physiologists continue to search for new sites of activity in undesirable organisms. The hope will be that new pesticides used to target these pathways may have much more environmentally benign characteristics to make them less risky to the environment and also to the many challenges of the registration system.
One of the more recent examples of this science is the discovery of the CYP9Q enzyme. In bees, this can detoxify and insecticide and thus keep them safe from such actives.
This finding was recently discovered by scientists from Exeter University, Rothamsted Research and Bayer.
The hope is that this knowledge about the CYP9Q enzyme will help to design more bee-friendly insecticides in the future and to conduct a more focused selection of new molecules much earlier in the development phase.
The decreasing availability of chemical actives represents a real challenge to their long-term use and effectiveness. Nature continues to fight against man’s intervention by developing resistance. New plant breeding tools have the potential to offer alternative control solutions, but these are not yet allowed in the EU.
Chemical solutions for farm problems are more likely to be fewer in the future. Farmers are very conscious of the loss of actives such as chlorpyrifos (Dursban), which left us with no control option for leather-jackets.
Everyone is aware of the great difficulties that glyphosate encountered achieving its limited five-year registration. And we face the inevitable loss of many of our current triazole actives and others as we move forward.
Growers may be less aware of the pressures and rumours around the morpholines and chlorothalonil. While it does not appear to be imminent, the loss of fenpropimorph and fenpropidin (Corbel and Tern) – important mildewicides for the control of existing mildew infection – would result in the loss of at least seven commercial products from the market and leave us with little ability to control established mildew infections.
Mildew is an important problem in all crops, but especially in oats and wheat. If we have to rely on the use of preventative products such as Flexity (proquinazid) and Talius (metrofenone), this would inevitably involve increased costs, coupled with increased risk of further resistance development.
Fewer actives for protection
Loss of actives represents a real problem for producers, but loss of families is even more important.
We depend on the ability to mix chemical families with different modes of action to help prevent the buildup of resistance to our fungicides, herbicides and insecticides. We must all be conscious of the fact that resistance is ubiquitous and management is the only real tool that we can use to prevent the buildup of undesirable populations of fungi, weeds or insects.
For advisers and growers, that necessitates access to actives from different families of chemistry. These choices have been dramatically reduced in recent times and they will be reduced further as legislative requirements intensify.
The eventual introduction of the definition of an endocrine disruptor seems likely to remove very many actives from the market as they come due for re-registration in the years ahead.
If, as previously suggested, we only have access to prothioconazole and all the other triazoles are removed, how can it alone be protected into the future?
Teagasc has been recommending a policy of alternating triazole actives to try to optimise control efficacy for the past few years, but this may soon not be an option. Indeed, what can we use to protect SDHIs or strobilurins? What will we have available to help protect the few new actives and families that are hopefully coming to the market in 2020 or thereabouts?
Septoria is now showing reduced sensitivity to all of the main fungicide families used to control it in Ireland.
The glyphosate debacle
Perhaps the biggest threat to the future of tillage farming in this part of the world was encountered in the glyphosate debacle.
Virtually all credible official independent bodies had ruled it safe and yet consumer bodies pushed an agenda of danger and falsehood. We must be aware that this approach may not stop with glyphosate alone.
Already we are seeing politics interfering with the registration of potential new actives that are badly needed in the sector and this situation is only going to get worse.
While we are still told that the major chemical R&D companies continue to invest in new chemistry, the pipeline of new actives is down to a trickle for Europe. Why would any commercial organisation invest a number of hundred millions of euro to produce a new active that could fall at any one of hundreds of hurdles along the way? Add to this the fact that we have seen a number of recent situations where approved products, already in the market, had to be withdrawn.
This is hardly a commercial environment which promotes investment and return to shareholders, so it is hardly surprising that the huge companies are looking to more straightforward markets.
Rationalisation
Given the huge investment cost required for a new active (over €300m) in virtually any market, it is not surprising to see the many expansion acquisitions that have taken place in recent years.
We saw Monsanto try to buy Syngenta, only to be taken over itself by Bayer. ChemChina since purchased Syngenta and Dow CropScience has merged with DuPont/Pioneer. Research and commercial capacity in crop genetics is certainly one driver behind these moves, but the ever-increasing costs of ensuring environmental safety is another.
We in agriculture should not complain about meaningful product safety requirements. We rely on the safety of what we produce to supply product into the food chain.
Farmers are also consumers and, more than most others, they want a safe and healthy environment in which to live. But let good science evaluate what is safe, not political whims.
Rationalisation itself comes with a cost. As these giants join, they are obliged to siphon off certain products or facilities so as not to create a monopoly situation in various markets. This means that products and actives that have long been associated with Company X may now become the property of Company Y.
This may take a bit of getting used to, but it may also see actives go to smaller companies that may not be in a position to defend their registration at some point in the future as the cost continues to soar.
We are possibly nearing the end of the agrochemical era as things stand. Fewer new actives and the growing ability of nature to develop resistance are the major catalysts for this comment. But food will still be needed and other technologies are likely to be developed.
Advances in biological control techniques continue. While these are making good progress in enclosed cropping, achieving control of a target organism in the open is a far greater challenge.
So far, it seems that most of these work in theory, but not necessarily in practice. But there will be solutions found in this arena, at least for a limited number of problems.
The other technologies that we will depend on sit in the plant breeding arena. Plant breeders have benefited greatly from the research of the past few decades, which was predominantly funded through GMO royalties in crops where a return was possible.
This knowledge and the techniques that it generated are not confined to GM crops. If these new technologies are allowed in the EU, they may offer considerable potential to use plant genetics to manage a number of our current challenges.
GMO concerns
The GMO debate continues to manifest itself in different ways.
Some markets are beginning to question the full extent of the diet our animals are consuming and we do import a significant amount of GM soya bean meal and maize.
Pressure is building for full traceability along the supply chain and not just the fact that our animals are out on grass most of the time. But deciding to pander to this requirement needs serious consideration.
The immediate reaction is to see such a move as good for Irish tillage because it can potentially increase the demand for native products.
But non-GM does not necessarily mean native product and if we continue to lose chemical tools, we will increasingly depend on plant breeders and these new technologies to provide workable solutions.
The problem in the EU is that gene editing technologies like CRISPER CAS9 are currently controlled under the GM legislative framework.
If the use of gene-editing technologies is legally allowed in the EU, there is always a danger that these clean technologies will be demonised as the new GMO. So we need to have serious consideration of where the balance of benefit lies for Ireland in this debate.
Typical raised mildew lesions on a wheat leaf will be very difficult to control if we lose the morpholines.
Resistance
One of the main requirements of these new technologies for tillage is to provide genetic tools for disease and pest resistance.
This in itself is no small ask, but as knowledge grows of the function of individual genes, breeders are better able to target the production of multigene resistance systems. These may still not confer total resistance, but they could still provide useful resistance that should prove to be stubborn and durable over time.
We in Ireland already know that we need these new tools. We continue to witness decreasing efficacy in the control of septoria and ramularia in particular and we run the risk of losing other actives that are essential for specific uses.
But breeders still do not have access to these tools to give us a sporting chance of staying ahead of nature in this battle.
We have already witnessed the lowering of septoria sensitivity to SDHI chemistry, which is the last highly active fungicide family currently available against this disease.
But lowering is not failure and we will hope that we will still have sufficient activity at field level to provide effective control in 2018. But the research centres have already shown us what seems to be inevitable.
We look forward to the arrival of new fungicide actives from new families of chemistry with activity against septoria and other diseases in the near future.
However, for as long as we have limited families of chemistry to protect one another, we cannot look forward to durable chemical control into the medium or long term.
We have been talking about knock-down resistance in grain aphids for a number of years now, but a second resistance mechanism (metabolic resistance) has also been confirmed.
This increases the challenge of aphid control, especially for BYDV prevention, and this is likely to be further increased by what seems to be the imminent loss of clothianidin, the active ingredient of Redigo Deter, which has proven very useful in the prevention of autumn infection, especially on early-sown crops.
Neonics
Clothianidin is one of the family of neonicotinoid insecticides that has been in the firing line in the EU in recent years.
While it is a seed dressing and might be regarded as providing low or no risk with good label adherence, the fact is that it is still under attack and may not be defended by its producer Bayer.
So if Deter is withdrawn at the end of this year, the only real option open to growers for BYDV prevention is a pyrethroid insecticide and we already know that some proportion of the population is already resistant to that family.
We have been awaiting the introduction of the new Dow insecticide to help add variety to our control options, but it has, thus far, not been cleared for use that early in the season (currently GS39).
However, Dow has submitted efficacy and other data for its Isoclast insecticide and it hopes to have the early season registration clearance in the very near near future.
New control pathways
One of the big changes taking place in crop science is an improving understanding of the biological mechanisms used to target or protect individual species.
Plant and pathology physiologists continue to search for new sites of activity in undesirable organisms. The hope will be that new pesticides used to target these pathways may have much more environmentally benign characteristics to make them less risky to the environment and also to the many challenges of the registration system.
One of the more recent examples of this science is the discovery of the CYP9Q enzyme. In bees, this can detoxify and insecticide and thus keep them safe from such actives.
This finding was recently discovered by scientists from Exeter University, Rothamsted Research and Bayer.
The hope is that this knowledge about the CYP9Q enzyme will help to design more bee-friendly insecticides in the future and to conduct a more focused selection of new molecules much earlier in the development phase.
The decreasing availability of chemical actives represents a real challenge to their long-term use and effectiveness. Nature continues to fight against man’s intervention by developing resistance. New plant breeding tools have the potential to offer alternative control solutions, but these are not yet allowed in the EU. 
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