Mitigating risk with Kantor
Timing is critical when it comes to getting the highest reward from vegetable crops, so including an adjuvant in the tank-mix is vital for keeping chemistry on time, on target and working at optimum efficiency for Worcestershire grower, Will Parrott.
Will is operations manager at Springhill Farm – part of Evesham Valley Growers – in Worcestershire, where he oversees the production of more than 1,600ha of vegetables. As a group, Evesham Valley Growers supplies almost a fifth of the total UK market for tomatoes, year-round, and are the third largest grower of spring onions in the UK, supplying both supermarkets and wholesale customers.
As well as vegetables, Springhill Fam also grows cereals, maize and grass to feed the on-farm AD plants. “Our teams manage the entire growing process from seed, drilling, agrochemical and digestate applications, as well as harvesting, and packing for all of the spring and salad onion varieties we sell,” explains Will. “We harvest every product by hand, and we then process the onions in our purpose-built packhouse at Springhill Farm. All salad and vegetable growing is carried out within a 25-mile radius of our packhouse, helping us provide the freshest produce possible.”
Though vegetables are incredibly sensitive high-risk crops, careful management can be rewarded with high returns. As such, Will has been working closely alongside his agronomist Dominic Swainson to put strategies in place throughout the growth cycle to ensure maximum yield and quality crops.
Top of the list when it comes to crop threats is disease, with downy mildew being the biggest problem and sometimes requiring weekly spraying.
We never have time to spray in a timely fashion, spray days seem to be getting less and less as the years go by. We end up against it most of the time and Kantor buys us more time.
The lesson learnt was for complicated tank mixes, always add Kantor. It saves so much time.
Photo courtesy of Kathryn Styan, agronomist at Agrii
Disease threats
Top of the list when it comes to crop threats is disease, explains Dominic, with downy mildew being the biggest problem and sometimes requiring weekly spraying.
The main risk timings are April-May and also August-September as this is when moisture and dew points on the leaf are at their highest. “Shorter days means longer time for the dew to be sat on the leaf,” says Dominic. “Irrigation in hot dry weather also runs the risk of raising humidity levels and conditions conducive for downy mildew.
“Many of the fields suitable for onion growing are on lighter soils close to the rivers which also adds to the humidity. Some of our summer production is moved up to the Cotswolds to spread growing period and risk, but they also run the risk of staying damp longer in cool conditions.”
As well as the risk of disease, the high-risk location also causes challenges during fungicide applications. “If it’s not too windy, we typically have about three hours a day in the early spring and later summer season with the rain we have to contend with.”
With a high disease threat level, a robust crop protection programme is required and is based around Fubol Gold (mancozeb), Amistar (azoxystrobin) and Orondis Plus (oxathiapiprolin), with early applications of Signum (boscalid + pyraclostrobin) also included to help with white rot – a soil borne disease of alliums.
And to counteract the impact of tight weather windows and often less-than-ideal spray conditions, Will has been incorporating adjuvant Kantor into the tank-mix to help reduce drift and ensure rainfastness.
“We never have time to spray in a timely fashion, spray days seem to be getting less and less as the years go by. We end up against it most of the time and Kantor buys us more time.”
Kathryn Styan, agronomist at Agrii
Kantor benefits
Kantor is a versatile activator and special purpose adjuvant from Interagro which contains a compatibility agent – a self-emulsifying agent – which helps products mix thoroughly together, even in cold water, and remain in solution without phase separation. “Kantor also works as an anti-drift aid and benefits coverage and retention, helping keep chemicals where they need to be,” explains Interagro’s Stuart Sutherland.
Will also works alongside Agrii agronomist Kathryn Styan who adds that Kantor also helps aid fungicide retention on salad onions in particular. “Onions grow very upright, and the leaves are very waxy so it can be hard to get the fungicide to stick on. But effective coverage is absolutely crucial to keep the downy mildew out, so the other major reason we use the Kantor is to help maximise coverage and adhesion to the crop.”
Weed challenges
After disease, weeds are the next biggest threat, particularly in the the salad onion crop due to their lack of competitiveness – something that is being worsened by a groundsel endemic at the farm at present, notes Dominic. “With this in mind, we mostly use repetitive low doses of residuals with the addition of Backrow Max to protect the crop.”
Backrow Max is another specialist activator adjuvant from Interagro which has been proven to reduce drift and enhance retention in the soil, he adds.
Being a minor crop reliant on EAMUs, weed control is also equally challenging in the British Vale of Evesham Asparagus crop — the only asparagus of its type that can be grown in Evesham, says Will.
“We try to use a number of different residual herbicide active ingredients with different modes of action to get season long control, as there is only one shot – pre-emergence — before the asparagus spears come up. It’s a perennial crop, in the ground for up to 10 years, so crop safety is important too.”
Dominic Swainson, agronomist at Agrii
Photos courtesy of Will Parrott, Evesham Vale Growers
Homogenous solutions
In terms of the chemistry, a tricky mix of clomazone, pendimethalin, metribuzin and mesotrione, as well as Roundup Biactive (glyphosate) pre- and post-harvest is the usual approach. “It’s a complicated mix, being applied in the spring when the spraying water is cold, so mixing can be difficult with settling out.”
The issues with such a big mix were highlighted last spring (2023) when Will went out to spray a field on 21 March and found nothing coming out of the sprayer nozzles. “It was totally blocked up and we had to spend half a day cleaning out the sprayer and unblocking it, having pumped the contents into an IBC.”
Upon observation, it was obvious the mix had settled out and was the reason for the issues, he says. “Dominic suggested trying adding Kantor to see if it could “rescue” the chemistry. We decided to test it by taking a couple of cans out and added approximately 200ml in to one of the containers.
“We shook it all up and Kantor totally brought the whole mix back into a homogenous solution. We left it overnight and it was still in suspension the next morning.
“So we pumped the contents of the IBC back into the spray tank with Kantor and were able to apply to the fields with no issues to the crop. The lesson learnt was for complicated tank mixes, always add Kantor. It saves so much time.”
Tried and tested
This ability to both speed up the mixing process and bring harmony to complicated mixes has been tried and tested extensively over recent years, with best results seen when Kantor is added to the spray tank before filling, says Stuart.
“Tank mixing pesticides offers flexibility, saves time and may increase effectiveness, but it can be problematic. Adding any more than three products to the tank increases the chance of a mixing problem.
“While effort should be made to avoid this, sometimes conditions and workloads dictate a complex mix is necessary, and bringing in something like Kantor can help to bring stability and ensure as much chemistry gets taken up by the crop as possible.”
With catchy weather patterns, challenging spraying conditions and crop protection weaknesses all putting pressure on the spring workload, Will says that if you can take the stress out of the operation, save yourself time and make the products mix together properly and perform as they need to then it’s a “no-brainer”.
“Optimising the delivery of your crop protection products to where they are needed is crucial to get the most out of them,” he concludes.
Photo courtesy of Kathryn Styan, agronomist at Agrii
Want to know more about Kantor?
Uniquely versatile, Kantor is the only adjuvant to alleviate pressure points across the entire spraying operation, giving you the flexibility needed to mitigate risk and optimise crop protection efficiency and effectiveness throughout the season.
Download our new booklet – packed full of trials data and info on the benefits and how to apply it – you can download it here.
Kantor is available to purchase through Agrii.
For technical questions and to discuss how to mitigate risks with Kantor, please get in touch with Stuart below.