Spray contractor likes new IPM insecticide - Minecto Star
Mayfield based spray contractor Gary Harrison runs three spray trucks and a self-propelled unit, spraying several thousand hectares of forage brassicas each year. Last season, Gary tried Minecto Star, a new forage brassica insecticide containing two IPM compatible active ingredients (cyantraniliprole plus pymetrozine).
The combination of actives is designed to control a wide range of insect pests without harming beneficial insects, which helps to provide ongoing control of insect pests and reduce the need for follow-up insecticides.
We asked Gary how Minecto Star performed in the field last season, and what he particularly likes about the product.
“As soon as we tried Minecto Star we liked it, because of no risk of OP’s getting into us. And it worked,” says Gary. “It does a really good job on both caterpillars and aphids, and one pass does it all. In the past we have been using Exirel® and Pirimor® mixed together, which means us having to carry two chemicals on the truck, and good old Attack® which kills more than just bugs.”
“The beauty of Minecto Star is it’s leaving the ladybirds alive, which means the bugs don’t come back. I think we are getting up to 8 weeks control with Minecto Star compared with 3 weeks with some other products, which means we don’t have to come back.”
“Yields will be right up there where growers use Minecto Star, and that’s where growers make their money. Price is the main reason why people are using the other stuff, but if they sat down and did the sums Minecto Star works out cheaper than using two applications of Attack®. It’s as simple as that.”
Minecto Star contains a full rate of cyantraniliprole (the active ingredient of Exirel®) plus pymetrozine (a systemic aphicide). The addition of pymetrozine not only provides better control of aphids than using cyantraniliprole alone, it also offers resistance management for aphids.
Being fully systemic, pymetrozine moves inside the plant to control aphids within the crop canopy and protect new growth. It acts almost immediately on contact or ingestion, causing aphids to withdraw their feeding stylet from the plant, with death from starvation occurring after 3 to 4 days.
As pymetrozine is only active against certain sucking insects (such as aphids) that feed on leaves through a stylet, beneficial insects (such as ladybirds, lacewings and parasitic wasps) that have no stylet and feed on insects (not leaves) are not affected. This helps to explain why pymetrozine has such a good IPM fit.
The best time to apply Minecto Star is when both caterpillars and aphids are present in the mid to late part of the season, before the build-up of high pest numbers. The product is also very good against leaf miner, making it an effective (and more pleasant to apply) alternative to organophosphate and synthetic pyrethroid insecticides in forage brassicas.
Click here to watch the video on what Gary Harrison thinks about Minecto Star.
Click here to access the Minecto Star Technote, Product label, and Safety Data Sheet.
