Fungicide performance in wheat, barley and oilseed rape

Disease management in wheat, barley and oilseed rape never stands still. On top of variation in seasonal disease pressures, pathogen populations continue to evolve, which can impact fungicide efficacy (due to resistance/insensitivity) and varietal disease resistance. Fungicide active ingredients and products continue to be withdrawn from and introduced to the market. As a result, there is a continued need for robust, independent information on the efficacy of established and new fungicides.

The AHDB Fungicide Performance project forms part of a long-running trial series, with the first fitted fungicide-efficacy curves produced for winter wheat in 1996. The trial series for barley started in 2002 and the oilseed rape series began in 2006. The current project format was introduced in 2015, when all trial series were combined in a single programme.

Results are relevant to commercial use and simple to interpret for levy payers. Agronomists also play a crucial role to turn efficacy data into practical field recommendations that maximise crop margins and minimise the development of fungicide resistance.

Partners

ADAS (lead), Niab, SRUC and Harper Adams University

Funder

AHDB

Duration

June 2025 - July 2028 

Activities

• Charts – referred to as ‘dose-response curves’ – that show the relative efficacy of fungicides against the target diseases at a range of doses (impact on disease control and yield).
• Contributes to a long-term information resource, which enables the monitoring of performance trends of products and active ingredients (to track shifts in pathogen sensitivity to fungicides).
• Aims to deliver information to levy payers in time for the first season of commercial use of new fungicides.

Resources

The latest data, as well as historic data for other diseases (e.g. barley powdery mildew and oilseed rape sclerotinia), is available via the AHDB Fungicide Performance webpage.

Niab contacts

Stuart Knight

Dr Aoife O'Driscoll