Whether it’s macadamias, almonds, avocados, mangoes, papaya or citrus, there’s a new insecticide from Syngenta that’s generating excitement.

Vertento insecticide is a new mode of action (Group 30), controlling key pests in these crops.

Growers who attended a Syngenta hosted field day in Bundaberg, took great interest in Vertento and Syngenta technical services lead, Dr Shaun Hood, says a highlight of the day was having so many locals come together and be interested in learning.

“As a group we developed an insecticide spray program in avocados based on currently available products. Then we took a look at what this would look like after Vertento was introduced,” Shaun says.

“What was really cool was at everyone shared their views, we came together to help each other solve problems, which doesn’t always happen,” he adds.

“When to spray was a key issue.

“In avocados spotting bugs are difficult to find, and damaged fruit can remain undetected for months. For this reason, most growers calendar spray to protect the fruit. 

“Vertento is a truly unique management option which can be used any time after fruit set giving growers the ability to rotate to a new highly effective mode of action.”

Coverage was another major discussion point with many of the people present having significant variation in what people viewed as a dilute spray volume.

“As with every crop protection product, it is important to understand that coverage is critical to ensuring best results,” Shaun adds.

In most crops, the Vertento application rate is expressed as a rate of product per 100 litres. Vertento can be applied either using a dilute application as a concentrate up to a maximum concentration factor of 2.5X.

The level of crop canopy in a hectare you intend to spray can vary greatly, especially as the crop grows and the area of canopy increases with it.

Your canopy management strategies, irrigation or rainfall, can all subsequently influence the size of the canopy.

This means to get the product dose correct before the application, you must first determine the water volume needed to spray the canopy up to the point of run-off.

This is referred to as dilute application volume.

Dilute spraying is applying your crop protection products with any sprayer designed and/or set up to apply high volumes of water up to the point of run-off (point of run-off refers to the amount of water required to wet the plant to the point where some spray droplets join together and run-off the foliage or nuts), and matched to the crop being sprayed.

There are several methods that can be used to determine a dilute application rate:

• The best way is to get out in the orchard and do a test spray of your orchard to determine the volume required to reach point of run-off.
• You can estimate the volume required to reach the point of run-off based on previous experience.
• Or use industry-based guideline (see below).

For example, if you are spraying a macadamia tree with a moderate density canopy and your sprayer is set up to spray 3m in height, to adequately cover your trees you will need approximately 27L water to reach the point of run-off, multiplied by the canopy height (3m), therefore 27L x 3m = 81L for every 100m of row.

To work out the volume you need in a hectare, you need to know the row spacing. If your rows are 5m apart, you will have 20 rows 100m long per hectare. Your dilute water volume per hectare becomes 20 rows x 81L = 1620L/ha.