Fruit insecticide cleared against strawberry pests

DuPont Crop Protection announced Tuesday it has picked up a label extension for its Group 28 pestici…

DuPont Crop Protection announced Tuesday it has picked up a label extension for its Group 28 pesticide Altacor to control oblique-banded leafroller, three-lined leafroller and climbing cutworm, and to suppress Japanese beetle, in strawberry crops.

Altacor has DuPont's proprietary anthranilic diamide product, Rynaxypyr, as its active ingredient.

Rynaxypyr, for which DuPont first received Canadian approvals in 2008, was billed Tuesday as having a "unique toxicological profile" with no cross-resistance to other chemistries.

Altacor is already registered for use against certain pests in grapes, pome fruit crops (apples, crabapples, pears), stone fruit crops (peaches, apricots, plums), blueberries and tree nut crops.

The product "is effective at very low use rates, and it is easy on bees and beneficials," Ray Janssen, DuPont Crop Protection's market segment manager for horticulture, said in a release Tuesday.

Thus, Janssen said, Altacor is "a very popular choice in an integrated pest management (IPM) program."