Botrytis Breakthrough

A breakthrough botrytis fungicide which leaves no residue, has no withholding period and is Bio Gro approved – it sound too good to be true. But it’s not.

Even better, three years of trial and evaluation show Sentinel has every indication of being as robust as conventional chemistry in protecting grapes from botrytis.

Sentinel is the first product of its type to be registered in New Zealand, and is one of the first commercial releases from the leading edge Bio-Protection Centre at Lincoln University. Developed by Agrimm Technologies, Christchurch, it is already attracting strong interest from the country’s grape growers.

Sentinel uses a new strain of the beneficial Trichoderma fungi (LC52) to aggressively colonise leaves, flowers and fruit bunches and prevent botrytis from gaining a foothold.

Distributor Key Industries says this is very big news for NZ’s multi-million dollar wine industry.

“Sentinel is not only organic, it can be applied at times when other fungicides cannot be used because of withholding periods,” points out Key managing director Frank Visser.

“It has no negative effects on vintification, leaves no residue in wine and leaves no coloured residue on the grapes.” As such it is ideal for integrated pest management (IPM) strategies. “The other important point is that it is unlikely to lead to botrytis resistance, because of its biological activity.”

Visser says three years of grape trials show Sentinel is both robust and cost-effective in comparison with other fungicides.

“We believe this is a very significant advance for helping grape growers manage and control a $30 million disease,” he says. Sentinel is formulated as a wettable powder (WP) and comes in 200 g packs. It is available now from your horticultural merchant.

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