The list of insecticides cleared for use in Canadian crops now includes its first Group 30 chemistry, as BASF makes plans to launch it in new wireworm control products next year.
BASF Canada Agricultural Solutions on Monday announced approval from Health Canada’s Pest Management Regulatory Agency (PMRA) for broflanilide, a GABA-gated chloride channel allosteric modulator.
In other words, Group 30 chemicals stick to their target insects’ central nervous systems and kill them with convulsions and hyperactivity.
BASF plans to launch broflanilide in Canada for the 2021 growing season in two products: Teraxxa F4, a combination insecticide/fungicide for cereals, and Cimegra, an insecticide for potatoes and corn.
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Previously registered products for use on wireworm have “intoxicated” the pest, “leaving a potential for their recovery,” BASF said, whereas broflanilide “targets all wireworm larval stages, which helps suppress and control potential seasonal recovery of wireworm populations.”
“Growers have struggled with wireworms in cereals for years, with available products deterring, rather than eliminating wireworms,” Chris Hewitt, seed treatment and inoculant marketing lead at BASF Canada, said in a release.
The company bills Teraxxa F4 as “a powerful new tool for cereal growers, especially those in Alberta and Saskatchewan, who have battled significant crop damage and loss due to wireworms in recent years.”
The product is to be sold as a premix of the new insecticide with four fungicide actives — pyraclostrobin, triticonazole, metalaxyl and fluxapyroxad — adding “broad spectrum protection against seed- and soil-borne diseases.”
Cimegra, meanwhile, is expected to offer “in-season management and reduction” of chewing insects, including wireworm in corn and potatoes as well as corn rootworm in corn.
The product offers “a unique mode of action that delivers lasting efficacy with no known resistance, making it an excellent new tool for the management of wireworms,” Allison Friesen, technical market specialist for insecticides and seed treatment at BASF Canada, said in the same release. — Glacier FarmMedia Network
