For healthy potatoes - Bayer CropScience

specialist
fungicides
Some people search for India and discover
America. Others search for pharmaceuticals
and discover fungicides for crop
protection. Thus, unintended discoveries
can turn out to be ground-breaking. In the
late 1970s, researchers at the Bayer Pharmacology
Department in Wuppertal were
actually looking for new pharmaceutical
azoles. Since most of the substances the
research group synthesized showed more
efficacy in plant protection than in human
health care: their efforts culminated in the
creation of a new substance named tebuconazole,
first synthesized in 1981. At that
time, it was not foreseeable that one day,
tebuconazole would become Bayer’s bestselling
fungicide.
However, the commencement of Bayer’s
azole competence dates back even further
than 1981. The company introduced the
world’s first azole fungicide in 1976:
Bayleton ® . In the following years, triadimefon,
the active ingredient of Bayleton
regularly saved the grain harvest on millions
of hectares of land. In seed treatment,
the novel product Baytan ® – based on triadimenol
– started to replace mercury-containing
mixtures in 1980.
With their azole active ingredients,
Bayleton and Baytan revolutionized fungal
disease control in crops. Most azoles have
systemic properties: they penetrate into the
plant and – depending on the active substance
– are distributed over shorter or
longer distances within its tissues. Thus
both the treated parts, and new shoots and
leaves formed after fungicide application,
are protected for a long time. Furthermore,
azoles have a threefold effect against fungal
pathogens: protection against infection;
cure during the disease incubation period;
and in some cases, eradication of the
disease even after symptoms have become
visible.
2/06 COURIER 3