2nd November 2023

Growers now have a seed treatment option they can readily use in canola rotations, including dual purpose crops where sacrifices often been made in early disease control.

SALTRO DUO® is compatible with relatively early grazing, helping growers bridge the gap in winter pasture growth, while protecting emerging crops from blackleg, rhizoctonia and Pythium.

Several other seed treatments diminish the usefulness of early grazing with longer withholding periods while offering even less in the way of disease protection. For many, canola is being planted as an earlier option and growers are utilising the extra growth and vigour from the crop to feed sheep and cattle. It is a particularly useful option as an interim grazing source as growers wait for their grazing cereals or pastures to become available.

Grazing canola has had some challenges in recent years with several seed treatments having longer-term restrictions on livestock grazing under certain situations. This is not the case with SALTRO® DUO from Syngenta, which has emerged as the preferred seed treatment with added flexibility for growers considering grazing opportunities.

Damien Schneider, Culcairn, used SALTRO® DUO as a seed treatment on his canola last season and was able to graze lambs on the crop eight weeks after sowing.

He said the crop was clean of disease throughout the early stages and provided valuable feed. 

“It could be two or three months after you’ve started grazing before you have the ability to do another disease spray,” he said.  “You definitely want that longevity.  To go right through until flowering is a great asset, particularly when it comes to the profit bottom line.”

SALTRO® DUO provides excellent control of canola seedling blackleg, rhizoctonia and Pythium and is a combination of Syngenta’s new, unique SDHI fungicide SALTRO and the recognised high performer MAXIM® XL. It targets the key control period from the cotyledons to the four to six leaf stage to stop Blackleg infections that leads to stem cankering.

SALTRO® DUO is particularly effective against blackleg, the major disease of concern to Australian canola growers, but it also has efficacy on rhizoctonia and Pythium. Both diseases cause damage when conditions are less than ideal early in the season.  Problems can occur when seed is sown dry close to the autumn break or if weather conditions become cool or damp.

“The broader spectrum of SALTRO® DUO, compared to other seed treatments available, provides an opportunity to control all three key diseases and give the canola the best possible start,” Syngenta Technical Services Lead Sean Roberts said.

“This leads to healthier cotyledons and a reduction in disease infections later in the season.”

Multiple trials have demonstrated the higher crop yields compared to untreated crops and the market standard Jockey Stayer seed treatment.

“Across 23 trials, spanning WA, SA, VIC and NSW, SALTRO® DUO contributed to significantly higher yields compared to crops using the commercial standard Jockey Stayer,” Mr Roberts said. “The crops established with SALTRO DUO treated seed were far and away better than the untreated crops.”

While the main aim of SALTRO® DUO is to promote healthier, disease-free plants to produce higher yields, there has also been work undertaken to ensure the product does not have any adverse effects on seed germination. Syngenta has conducted multiple tests to ensure there aren’t any negative crop and seed safety issues with SALTRO® DUO applied to canola seed.

Studies conducted at the Seedcare Institute by the Syngenta Technical Services team tested the hypocotyl length using cold and cool vigour testing methodology.  The tests demonstrated there wasn’t any negative effect on crop safety and superior with SALTRO® DUO. Some of the other seed treatments tested showed a reduction in the hypocotyl length leading to some concerns about the impact on crop safety. 

Seed safety trials were also conducted at the Institute with long-term results demonstrating there wasn’t any negative effect on stored seed treated with SALTRO® DUO.

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