Commercial cotton seed Cotton Seed Distributors Ltd (CSD) announced that a new seed treatment designed to boost cotton's natural defence against plant pathogens has achieved considerable success in Australian trials over the past three years.

Appropriately named "Boost" the Syngenta product does not attack pathogens directly, but turns on the plant's natural resistance to provide protection against a range of early season diseases.

Leading plant pathologist Dr Stephen Allen commenting on the weekly CSD Web that the trials over the past three years have shown that this protection may last through the entire cotton growing season, and not just for the few weeks after planting.

They have done experiments applying the treatment to the seed up to 15 months before planting with no adverse affects, and the benefits are still apparent once the seed is planted.

Dr Allen informed that the majority of the trial work has been aimed at Black Root Rot and Fusarium wilt, with interests also in collecting information on Verticillium and Alternaria.

They have a product evaluation permit from the APVMA that entitles us to do 2000 treated hectares of trials in NSW and Queensland. They have extensive trials set up for Black Root Rot in the Namoi and the Gwydir, and Fusarium wilt in the Gwydir and the Macintyre valleys and on the Darling Downs. They also have trials in the Macquarie."

Results are encouraging. In terms of plant stand they have concluded about 20 trials so far and in most of those there is virtually no difference. In two of them there is 30 per cent and over 40 per cent increase in plant stand which would appear to be significant, but at one there was a significantly lower plant stand.

In terms of Black Root Rot they have 15 trials and preliminary results show they have basically reduced the blackening of the tap roots by an average of 16 per cent over 15 trials which is good. In three of those trials it was 30 to 36 per cent reduction in blackening of the tap root.

That would be accompanied they expect by better seedling growth and over the next few weeks they will be actually doing dry weights in those trials to monitor improved early season growth.

In terms of Fusarium there are only 3 or 4 trials out so far but basically there are two to four times more dead plants in the control plots than there is where they have used the seed treatment. So they are encouraged at this stage, but they have got the whole season to go before us yet.

Having stated that the Boost is not the solution to Black Root Rot and Fusarium problems - it does not give absolute control - but they see it as giving a significant contribution to control and when combined with time of planting, better varieties and a range of other practices, they look at it as being an aid to giving farmers adequate control.

Australian firm CSD is proud to support the general research, development and extension effort of the cotton industry. CSD is a foundation sponsor of the Australian Cotton Growers Research Association's Biennial Cotton Conference and supports the ACGRA secretariat.
 
Cotton Seed Distributors Ltd
 
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