Iblon improves yield by 0.24 t/ha in Dorset farm trial

An impressive performance in 2023 is likely to see Vimoy + Proline (prothioconazole) become a mainstay at T1 at Chilbridge Farm, Wimborne, Dorset.

Where possible, the farm seeks to use variety disease resistance as the basis for a fungicide strategy, with more susceptible varieties receiving a spray that delivers greater protection, explains Rob Burden, farm manager.

“Our disease pressure is dominated by Septoria tritici and being in the West, it tends to be significant. We don’t see much yellow or brown rust and, since we reduced the area of wheat in the rotation, the incidence of stem-based diseases has fallen too,” Mr Burden says.

The CropCheck scores from spring 2023 demonstrate the extent of the Septoria pressure. A pre-T1 score of 96 indicated high inoculum carryover, requiring a fungicide with strong curative and protectant activity.

“Vimoy + prothioconazole will become the standard T1 spray on our dirtier varieties. In our trial it delivered an extra 0.24 t/ha over the farm standard of Revystar® + Arizona®.

“I’m not ruling out its use at T2, but that will be variety dependant and only where it has not been used already,” he says.

In a farm trial during 2023, the hard feed variety SY Insitor received iblon at 1.2 L/ha + prothioconazole at 0.6 L/ha, while other crops of SY Insitor and KWS Dawsum received Revystar® at 1.3 L/ha and Arizona at 1.0 L/ha. In contrast, KWS Extase and Champion, both of which have notably better Septoria resistance, received Ascra Xpro at 1.2 L/ha.

“There was little difference in disease control, either visibly or on the NDVI images, between the iblon-treated SY Insitor and that receiving the farm standard programme, but come the end of the season, the iblon-treated crop yielded 0.24 t/ha more.

This was a fair test of both programmes and enough to persuade me that iblon should become part of our disease control strategy,” he says.

Acknowledgements: Proline 275 and Vimoy are registered Trade Marks of Bayer. Proline 275 contains prothioconazole. Vimoy contains isoflucypram. Arizona is a Trade Mark of the ADAMA group . Arizona contains folpet. Revystar is a Trade Mark of BASF. Revystar XE contains fluxapyroxad + mefentrifluconazole.