Harness the true power of your crop protection programme with Kantor
A lot of thought and attention goes into picking the most appropriate crop protection products and rates to do the job, yet efficacy is highly dependent on good delivery to the target – harness the true power of your crop protection programme with Kantor in the mix.
With increasing pressure on pesticide actives and legislation having an impact on what active ingredients are available to growers, the job certainly isn’t getting any easier for farmers. Add unpredictable conditions into the mix and, inevitably, yields fall. A powerful all-rounder in the adjuvant space, Kantor boasts a range of benefits to help you reduce disease, mix with ease, and ensure your crop protection is working as hard as possible for your crops and profits.
Factors impacting effective spray delivery:
- Poor tank mix compatibility reduces active availability and crop safety
- High pH can lead to pesticide breakdown in the spray tank
- Spray drift reduces coverage and threatens safety
- Water beading limits coverage across the leaf
- The leaf cuticle is the biggest barrier to pesticide applications
Poor tank mix compatibility reduces active availability and crop safety
Only plant protection products fully dissolved in the spray tank can perform in the field. Whilst tank-mixing chemicals improves efficiency, an incompatible mix can cause antagonism and reduce efficacy in the field. Incompatibility can be caused by physical or chemical properties, cold temperatures, incorrect mixing order, water source. Compatibility agents can be added to aid mixing by allowing the chemicals to disperse and mix in water.
High pH can lead to pesticide breakdown
The pH of water indicates its acidity or alkalinity and is measured on a scale of 1 to 14. A neutral pH is 7. Most water has a pH between 6.5 and 8. Water above 7 is alkaline and water below 7 is acidic. Alkaline water can break down some chemicals through a process called alkaline hydrolysis. The longer a mixed chemical is left in the tank prior to spraying, the greater the breakdown – it is not recommended to leave spray mixes overnight. Reduced product performance may not be obvious. In some cases, the influence of water on the pesticide reduces its effectiveness only slightly, yet enough that tolerant or tough-to-control weeds, insects and diseases aren’t well controlled.
Spray drift reduces coverage and threatens crop safety
Spray drift is a risk to every application and occurs when ultra fine droplets are carried away by air movement. Lifting the boom, perhaps due to uneven ground, so nozzle tips are 20cm above the recommended height of 50cm, can double spray drift. Drift can be minimised with appropriate nozzles and by adding an anti-drift adjuvant to optimise spray deposition and coverage on the target.
Water beading limits coverage across the leaf
When it comes to fungicides, coverage is vital to prevent disease infection but often compromised without the use of a suitable tank-mix adjuvant to reduce surface tension and facilitate full spreading across the leaf/ear. Multisites act as a protectant but do not move on the leaf – this means they can only protect the parts of the leaf that the spray covers. Azoles and SDHIs have acropetal movement, so will move from where they land towards the end of the leaf. So if the base of the leaf doesn’t receive adequate coverage, the fungicide will not move in a downwards direction and that part of the leaf will either be completely unprotected or have received a sub-lethal dose of active ingredient. Whilst in-can adjuvancy can help, it is often insufficient as the adjuvant rate is fixed by the pesticide rate per hectare, whereas tank-mix adjuvants can be adjusted to fit the water volume being used.
The leaf cuticle is the biggest barrier to pesticide applications
With the exception of protectant fungicides that are adsorbed to the outside of leaf surfaces to protect it, systemic fungicides, PGRs and post-emergence herbicides need to penetrate the leaf cuticle and living tissue inside. The cuticle is on the upper and lower sides of the leaf to protect it from water loss and is the biggest barrier to water soluble compounds. Fungicides & PGRs can normally penetrate the cuticle by simple diffusion through the waxy components but can be slow under suboptimal conditions e.g. cold temperatures. A suitable tank-mix adjuvant, such as Kantor, can improve the speed of penetration into the leaf, which is particularly useful in curative situations where speed of uptake is key to limit the spread of disease.
Reduce disease, mix with ease – with adjuvant Kantor
Kantor is a unique activator adjuvant that helps to optimise the performance of plant protection products at every stage of the spray delivery process, from tank to tissue.
Makes life easier on farm
There’s nothing more frustrating that an incompatibility issue. Its one of the key reasons why farmers and agronomists love Kantor:
“The biggest benefit of Kantor is the improved compatibility in terms of safety in the tank-mix.”
“While Kantor isn’t a water conditioner as such, it definitely helps with tank-mix compatibility because of its slight buffering effect (to pH6). We’ve found that adding Kantor to the tank results in better compatibility, especially in early season when the spray water tends to be cold and when tank-mixes can be quite hefty.”
23% reduction in drift prone droplets – more targeted sprays
The effect of Kantor on droplet size and spray angle uniformity at the nozzle was investigated at Silsoe Spray Applications Unit. Kantor significantly reduced the number of drift prone Kestrel droplets and increased spray angle uniformity at the nozzle.
The anti-drift benefits of Kantor are all to easy to see in suboptimal conditions, as seen in this video:
Significant improvements in disease protection
Replicated field trials have proven that Kantor can add significant improvements in fungicide performance, reducing disease infection:
- Improved protection against Septoria and rust in wheat at T0-T2
- Improved protection against fusarium at T3
- Improved control of ramularia in barley
- Improved disease control in oilseed rape and sugar beet
Significant improvements in curative disease control and reduction in lodging and brackling
By improving the uptake of fungicides and plant growth regulators through leaf cuticles, Kantor is particularly helpful when fast curative disease control is required and crops are at risk of lodging.
Key reasons to integrate Kantor this spring
Find out where David Felce, regional technical advisor at Agrii and farmer in his own right, sees the key benefits of Kantor this spring.
Harness the potential of your crop protection with Kantor
Download your copy of our Kantor guide to reduce disease and mix with ease
Download your copy of our Kantor product guide here with more information on its performance in field, approved crops and key timing recommendations.