An off-patent ag chem maker’s potato, vegetable and fruit insecticide has been cleared to enter the cereal and soybean growers’ market in Canada.
Mana Canada, the Winnipeg-based Canadian arm of Israeli chemical maker Makhteshim Agan, recently announced it has picked up federal registration to expand the label for its imidacloprid (Group 4A) product Alias 240SC, to cover control of wireworms in cereal and soybean crops.
Mana bills Alias as having the same active ingredient as Bayer CropScience’s potato pesticide Admire. Imidacloprid is also used in products such as Bayer’s Concept insecticide and Gaucho seed treatments, and in Cheminova’s insecticide Grapple.
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The expanded Alias label allows growers to mix or apply the product sequentially with several "commonly used" seed treatment fungicides, for control of wireworms as well as "certain seed- and soil-borne pathogens in cereal crops," the company said.
Alias is now also registered for use in soybeans to control soybean aphid, bean leaf beetle and seed corn maggot, Mana said in its Dec. 17 release.
"Alias gives growers the ability to add a wireworm insecticide to the fungicide seed treatment that they would like to use," Phil Somerville, product development manager for Mana Canada, said in the release. "This flexibility means greater cost control for farmers along with proven wireworm control."
The expanded registration also includes variable application rates, "allowing growers the flexibility to adjust the rate based on the expected infestation," Mana said.
Mana’s label for Alias already covers the product’s use on crops such as potatoes, tree fruits, blueberries and various vegetables, against pests such as Colorado potato beetles, aphids, leafhoppers and others, through "a combination of contact and ingestion modes of action."
The product’s use in cherries and in field-grown lettuce and tomatoes is limited to certain provinces; its other label uses are Canada-wide.
