A smarter approach to insect control in winter feed

Effective, efficient insect pest control in winter brassica crops is money well spent when it’s needed, but how might your farmers protect their dry matter yields without taking out their beneficial insects as well?

One new product from a leading supplier holds the answer, controlling both caterpillars and aphids in an IPM-compatible formulation.

That’s according to Corteva Agriscience, which launched TwinGuard to the New Zealand market late last year.

Marketing manager Nicole Morris says caterpillars of white butterfly and diamond back moth, plus the grey cabbage aphid, can all put an unwelcome dent in the likes of winter kale and swede yields at this time of the year if pest populations reach damaging thresholds.

Because TwinGuard combines Corteva’s two proprietary active ingredients – Jemvelva (Group 5) and Isoclast (Group 4C) – it is effectively a one-stop shop solution for all three pests, eliminating any need to buy, store and mix two different chemicals for the same job.

“If your farmers’ crops are nice and clean at this stage, that’s great,” Morris says.

“But if they do need to take action to protect yields, and they’re keen to move to newer generation insecticides that have less impact on beneficials than the old organophosphates, TwinGuard can be very useful.”

In either case, the essential first step is monitoring insect pest populations, to avoid unpleasant and potentially costly surprises.

“We are seeing a move away from spraying every time a pest is spotted, in favour of monitoring not only what pest species are present in forage brassica crops, but also their population numbers and the level of damage caused as well as what beneficials might be present.”

TwinGuard is approved for both ground and aerial application, with the latter a helpful option at this stage of crop maturity and canopy closure, Morris says.

It offers the additional benefit of a relatively wide application window, covering both early establishment and post-canopy closure, depending on the target pests.

The grazing withholding period for meat is 14 days, and 28 days for milk, meaning it can be used for both summer and winter forage brassicas.

Product arrived on retailers’ shelves in November, and early feedback from both the trade and end users has been positive.