Apr 1, 2009

Fungicide Supplies Tight, Prices Up

Apple growers seeking to control early season scab will be among the first fruit growers to feel the effects of “complications” affecting the supply and price of fungicides.

In general, supplies will be tight and prices will be higher, double for some products.

“The price of mancozeb has gone up nearly twice, and captan will be up considerably,” said Case DeYoung, manager of the Wilbur-Ellis distribution center near Sparta, Mich.

The shortage is showing up in EBDC fungicides and apparently started with Dow AgroSciences decision last fall to close its Dithane production plant in Texas for upgrading. The plant has not reopened.

Heidi Davey, the upper Midwest area manager for MANA, said the “domino effect” put pressure on all fungicides, not just the EBDC products. Depending upon which distributor they favor, growers can choose the EBDCs Polyram, Manzate or Penncozeb. Other broad spectrum protectant products include chlorothalinil and captan.

George Arends, manager of the CPS distributor in Sparta, Mich., sells Polyram as its lead EBDC and expects that supply will be under some pressure. Like others in the industry, he’s heard lots of rumors about causes – increasing demand for fungicides in India and China, a shortage of chemicals needed for making EBDC products, and, of course, the closure of the Dithane plant in the United States.

Other sources of pressure, DeYoung said, come from things like BASF’s decision to cut back deliveries of Pristine by 50 percent. That fungicide is used on cherries and blueberries, sending those growers to look for other products.

In the area around Sparta, there is documented resistance of apple scab to strobilurin fungicides, so that has sent growers looking for alternatives as well, he said.

The vegetable industry’s need for fungicides also affects the fruit industry. While fruit growers don’t use maneb, Dow’s decision not to re-register that product affected the overall EBDC supply situation.

In some cases, higher prices may be the result of companies reacting to the shortage. “They’re charging more because they can,” one distributor said.

Dave Rosenberger, the plant pathologist at Cornell University, had an analysis of the fungicide situation in the March 23 issue of Scaffolds, Cornell’s weekly newsletter published for New York growers during the production season.

“Fruit growers will face some unusual challenges vis-à-vis fungicide programs for

2009,” he said. “The challenges arise from huge changes in pricing for many products, limited availability for some products, and gamesmanship concerning how to obtain the most favorable pricing.”

Dithane is not currently being produced because an old production facility was shut down, he said.

“Penncozeb and Manzate contain the same active ingredient and should be available so long as the just-in-time delivery schemes don’t hit any snags.”

Prices for mancozeb fungicides (Penncozeb, Manzate) have more than doubled in the past year, and the cost of captan has also increased significantly, he said.

In his analysis, Rosenberger listed several contributors to the turmoil.

• Older manufacturing facilities being decommissioned for various reasons (the plant that made Dithane).

• Increased raw material prices (high oil prices last summer) necessitated higher pricing. “Many generic products such as the mancozeb fungicides had such low profit margins that any economic disruptions quickly reverberated through the system,” he said.

• Increasing demand for fungicides in other countries.

• Some factories in China were shut down during the 2008 Olympics as the Chinese government attempted to improve air quality. Those shutdowns may have affected seasonal availability for some fungicides.

• Some strobilurin fungicides are now being applied to millions of acres of corn and soybeans as “plant health” products because they can generate yield increases in the absence of any single disease that would warrant fungicide application. This plant health usage has rocketed upward in the past three years and is creating competition for available supplies of the strobilurin fungicides found in Pristine and Quadris/Abound, he said.

“The bottom line is that growers may need to plan ahead a bit more this year in preparing for apple scab season,” Rosenberger said. “Despite increasing prices for fungicides, the most expensive fungicide program will still be the one that fails to control early-season scab, thereby necessitating higher rates of captan throughout summer. Failed attempts to reduce fungicide expenses could ultimately prove to be the worst possible outcome from the ongoing changes in the fungicide market.”

Rosenberger’s article in Scaffolds can be found at http://www.nysaes.cornell.edu/ent/scaffolds/2009. The March 30 issue has a follow-up article on performance of the various fungicides for control of apple diseases.

— By Dick Lehnert