VELISTA Fungicide has landed in New Zealand
We’re excited to introduce VELISTA Turf Fungicide to the New Zealand turf market. VELISTA is a powerful innovation that is sure to be the cornerstone of fungicide programs in New Zealand, as it is in the USA and Australia.
With its highly efficacious novel turf registered mode of action, and powerful preventative and curative action, this turf-specific formulation will protect your green spaces during high pressure periods.
VELISTA is a powerful broad-spectrum fungicide that can be used all year round. It controls all the major turfgrass diseases from Anthracnose to Spring Dead Spot and the hard to control Fairy Ring complexes. It is the first turf registered option for control of Fairy Ring, Leaf and Sheath Spot, and Brown Ring Patch in New Zealand.
Mike De Luca (Technical Manager, Turf & Landscape, Syngenta ANZ) says:
Apply spring, summer or autumn. Season to season, VELISTA makes disease control easy. Spring and autumn are ideal seasons to use VELISTA to clean up greens, tees and fairways. And when temperatures shift from warm to hot, VELISTA delivers excellent control of summer stress diseases on greens with its powerful formulation designed for turf.
The result of many years of R&D, VELISTA’s a new active ingredient, penthiopyrad, is a Succinate Dehydrogenase Inhibitor (SDHI) fungicide. This innovative product works by blocking the pathogen cell’s energy production and shutting down any further spore or fungal growth leading to pathogen death. VELISTA moves into the turf grass leaves and roots providing excellent residual activity which is ideal for preventative applications. The result is a broad-spectrum, turf specific formulation that has demonstrated excellent efficacy and longevity.
VELISTA controls fungal plant diseases by binding to the protein succinate dehydrogenase in respiratory complex II, penthiopyrad inhibits one critical respiratory pathway, causing the desiccation of the fungal spores. The mode of action is important for turfgrass managers to be aware of, as it reinforces that once again, prevention and early application in the disease cycle is critical to reducing the fungal population and reducing the amount of scarring left on greens due to fungal outbreaks.
The target diseases listed for VELISTA Turf Fungicide are Anthracnose, Brown Patch, Curvularia Leaf Spot, Dollar Spot, Leaf spot diseases, Red Thread, Pink Patch, Leaf and Sheath Spot, Brown Ring Patch, Fairy Ring and Spring Dead Spot. These diseases regularly occur in New Zealand, and VELISTA can be used preventatively when conditions favour disease development or at higher application rates for curative control.
VELISTA is a water dispersible granule (WG) which allows for easy mixing and application to turf. Importantly VELISTA does not exhibit any growth regulation properties to turf grass and has shown no phytotoxicity to turfgrass in New Zealand, Australian and US trials. It can be used in the middle of summer without any threat of yellowing or slowing of turf grass growth.
