Barley Fungicide ST Trial

How does efficacy of Systiva, Evergol Energy and Uniform compare with Flutriafol against various foliar and root disease.

Dumbleyung, WA, 2017

Summary

This trial was established near Dumbleyung, Western Australia to compare and demonstrate to the David Gray’s extended network, the efficacy of Systiva, Evergol Energy and Uniform compared with the regional standard - Flutriafol.

In this trial La Trobe barley was sown following 3 years of Bass barley into varying stubble loadings. The Impact & Uniform treatments were applied in furrow while Evergol Energy & Systiva were applied as a seed treatment.

Due to seasonal conditions disease pressure was relatively low however with spot and net form of blotch infection present. In the early growth stages Systiva and Evergol Energy performed superior to all other treatments with Uniform catching up later. Evergol Energy seemed to lose activity early on compared with the Systiva and Uniform treatments which were comparable in longevity. The flutriafol treatment was not effective on spot and net form of blotch.

Methodology

Treatment List

Tmt No.ProductRate (mL/ha)AI Rate (gai/ha)1Untreated + Raxil T601.5 + 0.242Impact + Raxil T100 + 6050 + 1.5 + 0.243Evergol Energy1566 + 12 + 9.64Systiva9029.975Uniform + Raxil T300 + 6096.6 + 37.2 + 1.5 + 0.24

Trial Layout x 2 replications

Experimental Design

Design:Commercial DemonstrationReplications:2Plot length:10mPlot Width:4m

Site, Crop and Application Details

Assessment Methods

Assessment Date:Assessment25/05/2017Plant Counts09/06/2017Photographs19/06/2017Infection Rating05/07/2017Observations08/09/2017Infection Rating20/11/2017Yield

Data Analysis

All data analysis in this report was conducted using Microsoft Excel. Simple means, analysis of variance and the student t-test were used to determine statistical significance using the least significant difference method with a 95% confidence interval.

Results

Plant Counts

The number of plants in 5x1m of row were counted for each plot. Below is the conversion to plant/m2. Running a student t-test between treatments showed only a statistically significant difference between Impact and Evergol Energy.

NDVI

There are slight numerical differences albeit statistically insignificant.

Observations + Infection Ratings (Z15-16) – Clint Mullan

Untreated - Net blotch on bottom 2-3 leaves, high infection in stubble (10-15%), lower infection in the absence of stubble (5%)

Impact- High net blotch infection on bottom 2-3 leaves (10-15%), lower infection in the absence of stubble (5%)

Evergol Energy - Very clean, some infection on lowest leaves but only a trace and only where there is stubble pressure. (2-3%)

Systiva - Very clean, some infection but very low levels where stubble load is high (2-3%)

Uniform - Medium infection (5-10%) under very high stubble load on leaves 1-3 but only a trace in the absence of stubble.

Observations (Z25-26)

Untreated - Net blotch infection now moving up the plant across all of the plot with a trace on the youngest fully emerged leaf.

Impact- Again infection is spreading onto new leaves at low levels.

Evergol Energy - Some low level development of net blotch on lower leaves where stubble is present but otherwise plant still relatively clean.

Systiva - Cleanest plot still in my observations, similar to plot 3 (Evergol) however still holding out disease even in the presence of stubble.

Uniform - Been some development of disease since the last check done in June but not as bad as plot 1 & 2. Mainly where pressure is highest with stubble present but low levels through the plot.

Infection Ratings (Anthesis)

At the anthesis crop stage, 10 tillers were pulled from each treatment and the top 3 leafs rated as a % of leaf area infected (only blotch). These ratings accurately represent what was seen at this stage. See appendix for images.

Yield

Yield of two replications per block were taken (No Foliar, Cogito x 2 & Cogito fb Prosaro). The least significant difference (LSD) for this block is 607Kg. Hence there is no significant difference between any of the treatments and the untreated. However there is a significant difference between Systiva and Uniform.

There is a numerical difference of 350-450kg between Evergol and Uniform compared with the other treatments. However with an LSD of 720Kg there is no statistically significant difference between any of the treatments.

Uniform has numerically topped all three blocks achieving a difference of ~200Kg compared with all other treatments. However with an LSD of 779Kg there is no statistically significant difference between any of the treatments.

Comparison of Foliar Strategy

In addition to comparing the various premium upfront fungicide applications, we wanted to examine the benefit of following up with additional foliar applications. With an LSD of 259Kg there is a statistically significant benefit to applying two hits of Cogito compared with doing nothing. The Cogito followed by Prosaro is nearly (250Kg) statistically significant to doing nothing. Statistically, in this trial, there is no difference between following up with 2x Cogito or Cogito then Prosaro.

Protein

There is a numerical gain, of roughly 0.4% from an application of upfront fungicide. However statistically there is no significant difference. In some seasons 0.4% could be the difference between feed and malt.

Conclusion

In this trial Evergol Energy treated seed appeared to be less flowable than other treatments as we had difficulty removing the surplus seed from the seeding hopper. This could explain why the plant numbers in the Evergol treatment showed lower establishment.

Spot and net form of blotch appeared early and clear differences between treatments could be seen, (see photos below) with Systiva and Evergol Energy plots remaining very clean. There was no visual difference in crop vigour and the NDVI readings showed no significant difference either.

At the anthesis crop stage Evergol Energy was no longer holding off the disease while Systiva was still keeping the disease at bay and the Uniform plots were the cleanest.

This trial has two replications only and is therefore prone to variations in soil type, elevation and pest hot spots such as aphids. In addition this paddock was badly frosted in 2016 which will have resulted in varied nutrient removal across the trial site. Hence, statistically the yield results showed no significant difference with one exception – between Uniform (4.74 T/Ha) and Systiva (4.07 T/Ha) in the No Foliar block. Uniform has showed the greatest numerical yield bump overall, followed by Evergol Energy. Based on the sustained infection control observed, we would have expected the Systiva treatment to also demonstrate a yield gain however this was not the case. We cannot conclude that Systiva will have any repetitive negative effect on crop yield & attribute the variation as typical in limited replication, non-randomised trials with variable background. See attached aerial photo in the appendix which shows some low patches in the two Systiva replications which we suspect may have been aphid hot spots, another contributory factor.

In this trial it was statistically significant to incorporate a foliar strategy. With a gain of 340 Kg/Ha by applying two sprays of cogito, the return on investment (ROI) is roughly $40/Ha.

In all treatments protein was increased compared to the untreated with Systiva generating the largest numerical gain of 0.45%.

The low disease pressure and soft finish to the 2017 season will have diminished and smoothed any yield gains from applying a fungicide.