Italian Farmers Realize Profits from Herbicide Applications

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In Italy, herbicides to kill weeds in crop fields have been routinely used on almost all the acres for the past 30 years. Is the cost of the herbicide application justified considering the levels of weed infestation? Italian researchers examined the record…

“The frequency distribution of yield loss due to weeds in winter wheat, sugar beet, maize and soybean has been studied using the available data of weed control trials undertaken in north-central Italy in the last 30 years. The breakeven yield loss and the probability of obtaining a positive net return from chemical weed control were calculated, considering different treatment options and different weed-free yields.”

“In winter wheat the probability of a positive net return from chemical weed control is high, between 80.5 and 97.3%. … As far as other crops analysed are concerned, the probability of a chemical treatment being profitable is >80% in maize and soybeans and >95% in sugar beets.”

“The profitability of chemical weed control depends on the density, composition and time of emergence of the weed flora, on the competitiveness of the crop and on the chemical used. In most cases, however, it is profitable to spray; in other words in the Po Valley there is a high degree of probability that the weed density is sufficient to bring about a yield loss greater than the treatment cost.”

Authors: G. Zanin¹, A. Berti² and M. Giannini³
Affiliation: ¹ Instituto di Agronomia Generale e Coltivazioni Erbacee, Padova, Italy; ² Centro per lo Studio dei Diserbanti del CNR, Padova, Italy; ³ ESAV, Venice, Italy
Title: Economics of herbicide use on arable crops in north-central Italy.
Publication: Crop Protection. 1992. 11:174-180.

Denmark Leads the World in Spinach Seed Production Thanks to Modern Crop Protection

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Denmark is a world leader in production of vegetable seeds that meet very high quality standards and are exported to growers around the world. In order to grow a high quality seed crop economically, Danish seed growers use herbicides to control weeds and fungicides to control plant diseases. Recently, an assessment was made as to whether Denmark can maintain its position as the leading spinach seed supplier, and the results show…

Can Denmark keep the position as the biggest spinach seed producer in the world?

  • Yes, if Denmark is allowed to use proper herbicides and fungicides
  • Yes, because Denmark has good climatical growing conditions for spinach – good soil, sufficient rain and long days
  • Yes, because Danish farmers are highly skilled and have top mechanization
  • Yes, because Danish seed companies have very good processing facilities
  • Yes, because Denmark has a very good infrastructure
  • and… Yes, because Denmark will fight for it!

Author: Henning van Veldhuizen
Title: Can Denmark keep the position as the biggest spinach seed producer in the world?Presented at: 2011 International Spinach Conference, October 3-4, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Cool Spring Weather Leads to Problems for Organic Potato Growers

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Organic growers are severely limited in the tools that they can use to fight fungal infections since they cannot use effective chemicals. One unhappy result was severe losses to diseases in the organic potato fields of Northern California last fall.

“John Crawford, part owner of Crawford Farms, Inc. for commercial farming and Cascade Farms for organic farming in Tulelake, said everyone across the county is two weeks behind on their potatoes. … The cool spring also contributed to problems with rhizoctonia disease… Rhizoctonia girdles the roots and the stem, then the plant withers and yield is reduced.”

“Rhizoctonia was a huge problem in Crawford’s conventional potatoes and crops would have a 100 percent infection rate. Now, with the new chemical compounds, he has good control. But Crawford said he continues to struggle with rhizoctonia in his organic potatoes. ‘It’s our worst enemy in organics because we really don’t have a natural compound that is very good at fighting it,’ he said, adding in one field of organic potatoes he estimates 75 percent are infected with rhizoctonia. … Crawford estimated at least a 20 percent yield loss from rhizoctonia damage.”

Author: Kathy Coatney
Title: Rhizoctonia and wilt create challenges for potato growers.
Publication: Ag Alert. September 14, 2011. p.18

Guyana’s Economy Boosted by Using Herbicides in Rice Fields

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Guyana stands alone in the world in terms of the proportion of rice that they export – 65%! Rice is the highest agricultural foreign exchange earner for Guyana. In order to maximize rice yields, rice growers in Guyana rely on herbicides to control weeds.

“Guyana’s rice industry for 2008 has exported US$118M, which represents the highest earnings ever for the sector. … Rice continues to make significant strides as a socioeconomic crop in Guyana. From a very small and quite subsistence beginning, it has grown today to one of the pillars of Guyana’s economy.”

“Weed control continued to play a major role in maximizing rice yields during 2008. … Despite the use of preventative measures and cultural practices that normally reduce weed infestation, surviving populations of the major rice weeds were significant enough to warrant the use of chemical control measures in order to maximize grain yield.”

Authors: Jagnanne Singh and Dindyal Permaul
Affiliation: Guyana Rice Development Board
Title: Guyana Rice Development Board Annual Report 2008.
Available at: http://grdb.gy/templates/GRDB/images/GRDB%20Annual%20Report%202008.pdf

China #1 Producer of Garlic Thanks to Fungicides

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China is by far the leading producer of garlic in the world, annually growing approximately 10.5 billion kilograms. Chinese garlic accounts for over 77% of world production. Following devastating outbreaks of leaf blight, research was conducted to determine the most effective means of controlling the disease.

“From autumn 2004 to spring 2008, leaf blight was found on garlic leaves in Dangyang County, Hubei, China, with the crop area affected estimated to be over 7000 ha. Garlic yield was reduced by 30% on average, with up to 70% yield losses in some fields during the winter growing season.”

“Epidemiology, cultivar resistance, and chemical controls were investigated during the 2006 to 2008 growing seasons in Dangyang County to improve disease control methods. … Relatively few of the commonly grown cultivars had high levels of resistance to leaf blight. … Fungicide applications in the field were effective in controlling leaf blight… As well, once symptoms are observed, field applications of the fungicides flusilazole (± famoxadone) or mancozeb are recommended to further combat disease.”

Authors: Lu Zheng¹, Rujing LV¹, Junbin Huang¹, Daohong Jiang¹, Xuhong Liu², Tom Hsiang³
Affiliation: ¹ Huazong Agricultural University, Wuhan, Hubei, China; ² Plant Protection Station, Dangyang County, Hubei, China; ³ University of Guelph, Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Title: Integrated control of garlic leaf blight caused by Stemphylium solani in China.
Publication: Canadian Journal of Plant Pathology. 2010. 32(2):135-145.

Organic Cotton Discontinued in Uganda – Due to Damage to the National Economy!

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Cotton is considered one of the most strategic commodities in Uganda for increasing household income, creation of employment, industrialization and poverty alleviation. In 1995 the Swedish International Development Agency began promoting organic methods of growing cotton in Uganda. The area under organic management expanded rapidly. Farmers were attracted to organic cotton because the promoters promised a premium price. Then, the reality of trying to grow cotton without chemical pesticides sunk in, shown below in remarks from a presentation by Jolly Sabune, Managing Director of the Cotton Development Organization.

  • During 2007/8, the en-mass introduction of organic caused over 68% drop in yields in the organic areas.
  • National cotton production also dropped by 50% from 134,000 bales in 2006/7 to 66,500 bales in 2007/8.
  • Organic promoters were sabotaging government efforts of increasing cotton yields by de-campaigning use of the effective conventional pesticides.
  • Following the sharp decline in production due to en-mass introduction of organic cotton, the government of Uganda decided that organic cotton promoted in the manner seen during 2007/8 was entrenching poverty rather than alleviating it and would therefore not be accepted.
  • Anyone who wants to support small-scale farmers in cotton must therefore promote conventional cotton production.

Author: Jolly Sabune
Affiliation: Cotton Development Organization
Title: Organic Cotton Production: Uganda’s Experience. Available at: http://www.icac.org/meetings/plenary/70_buenos_aires/documents/os3/os3_sabune.pdf

Fungicides Save Brazil’s Coffee Crop

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Coffee leaf rust is considered one of the most catastrophic plant diseases of all time. In the 1860s, coffee rust was largely responsible for destroying the coffee plantations of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), which had been the greatest coffee-producing country in the world. As coffee rust spread through Asia and Africa, coffee production increased significantly in Latin America where coffee rust was not present. However, coffee rust was detected in Brazil in 1970 and has since spread throughout Latin America, making fungicide use essential.

“In susceptible cultivars, chemical control has been the only option for decreasing the incidence of CLR on plants, and for reducing the harmful effects on the disease. The coffee growing regions in Brazil as well as almost all other coffee-producing regions worldwide are comprised of susceptible Coffea arabica and Coffea canephora cultivars (the latter is the second most widely cultivated coffee species). Preventive control of CLR in the main Brazilian coffee-producing regions consists from four to six applications of protective copper-based fungicides and two to three foliar applications of systemic fungicides.”

Authors: A. Fernando de Souza, L. Zambolim, V. Cintra de Jesus Jr., P.R. Cecon.
Affiliation: Federal University of Vicosa, Minas Gerais State, Brazil
Title: Chemical approaches to manage coffee leaf rust in drip irrigated trees
Publication: Australasian Plant Pathology. 2011. 40:293-300.

Lack of Insecticides for Radishes Would Cause Significant Economic Loss in France

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France is the second largest European producer, behind Germany, of radishes. Each year, France produces 48,000 tons of radishes. Damage to radishes from root maggots must be prevented in order to produce a marketable crop. But since 2007 no insecticide has been registered in France for use against root maggots. Emergency uses of unregistered insecticides have preserved the industry. A recent analysis calculated the economic costs of not having effective insecticides available.

“The additional costs caused to replace a chemical treatment by a manual operation (manual sorting at harvest) is calculated at 6,905 €/ha. At the sector level, the lack of availability of a registered plant protection product against vegetable flies would thus lead to a direct loss of 18,600,000 €. This loss in profitability seriously impacts the viability of the radish production sector in France and puts at the stake the employment directly and indirectly involved in this sector. To give an indication, in Loire-Atlantique this sector has significant weight representing 2,500 FTEs (Full Time Equivalent). … The risk of distortion of competition in the French radish production sector is real vis-à-vis other European countries where pressure of the vegetable flies is less.”

Publication: Economic damage caused by the lack of plant protection products against root maggots in radish production in France. In: Study on the Establishment of a European Fund for Minor Uses in the Field of Plant Protection Products. June 2011.
Project Leader: ARCADIA International

Sacrebleu! French Artichoke Production Threatened!

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A lot can be learned about the benefits of pesticides when key pesticides are no longer available for use. In 2007, the only herbicide effective on broadleaf weeds in artichoke fields was canceled in France. A recent report describes the consequences…

“To illustrate the economic damage caused by the lack of plant protection products for weed control in artichoke production in France, we took the specific case study of a farm in the Brittany region. The direct cost and indirect impact of the implementation of an alternative weed control solution, i.e. mechanical weed control accompanied by a manual hoeing, is summarized.”

“At farm level, the lack of registered plant protection products for weed control of artichoke caused a decrease in the net margin of 1,020 €/ha for a culture of artichoke for 3 years. As in France artichokes are grown on 9,000 ha, at the scale of the total artichoke production sector, the direct loss of profit amounts to slightly less than 10,000,000 €. In the long term, farms may not be economically viable because the net margin is too low (1,979 €/ha for 3 years, or 660 €/ha for one year) to allow profitable production from one year to another. Therefore, some farms may disappear due to the lack of profitability. This will affect employment in production, but also in all the downstream activities (packaging, marketing, shipping…).”

“For example, in northern Brittany, 900 growers produce artichoke as principal crop. Most of these producers employ the equivalent of 2.7 FTE (Full Time Equivalent). The absence of chemical herbicides allowed on artichoke therefore threatens the equivalent of 2,430 FTE in this region, without counting jobs indirectly linked to production. Moreover, a majority of producers performs crop rotation associating artichokes to cauliflowers. The difficulty of growing artichoke crops will affect the production of cauliflower. The entire economy of this vegetable producing area could be compromised.”

Publication: Study on the Establishment of a European Fund for Minor Uses in the Field of Plant Protection Products. June 2011.
Project Leader: ARCADIA International

Better Pesticides Contributed Greatly to Increased Rice Yields in Arkansas

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Arkansas is the leading rice-producing state in the US. The average yield of Arkansas rice has steadily increased over the past twenty years. The introduction of new pesticide products, e.g., an herbicide that selectively removes weedy red rice from commercial rice without harming the crop, has played a major role in this increased yield.

“During the past 20 years, the state-average yields in Arkansas have increased approximately 1780 lb/acre (about 40 bu/acre) or 2 bu/acre/year. This increase can be attributed to improved varieties and improved management, including such things as better herbicides, fungicides, and insecticides, improved water management through precision leveling and multiple inlet poly-pipe irrigation, improved fertilizer efficiency, and increased understanding of other practices such as seeding dates and tillage practices.”

Authors: C.E. Wilson, Jr., S.K. Runsick and R. Mazzanti
Affiliation: University of Arkansas at Monticello
Title: Trends in Arkansas Rice Production.
Publication: AAES Research Series 581. B.R. Wells Rice Research Studies 2009.