BASF | New Product Progress Reports

At the beginning of this year, BASF was on the cusp of introducing three new products that contained new, novel active ingredients for the ornamentals industry. Tower® herbicide (containing the new active ingredient dimethenamid-p), Pageant™ fungicide (which contains pyraclostrobin plus a new a.i., boscalid), and FreeHand™ 1.75G herbicide (which contains pendimethalin and dimethenamid-p). We believed that these new active ingredients would bring much needed diversity to the current collection of ornamental preemergence herbicides and foliar fungicides. At least that is what we hoped. It is my contention that no matter how much you test, research, market and hype a new product, the marketplace – specifically, growers and landscape managers – ultimately determines the relative success or failure of a new product. If growers like what they see, and if a new product brings them real value, then they will buy it. What a concept!

As summer rolled around, BASF received the EPA approvals for Tower, Pageant and FreeHand right on schedule. State registrations, the final process in the regulatory labyrinth, were rolling in and before we knew it, we were initiating our first product sales. Our first sales of Tower and Pageant took place in Oregon. Florida recorded our first official FreeHand sale. As expected, most of the preliminary sales were smaller quantities that growers typically buy in order to take a look at a new product. I believe that growers are eternal optimists, but also very pragmatic. And in our case, they appreciate new products and are hopeful they will work as advertised, but they are cautious, knowing that new, untested products represent an unknown in terms of plant safety. Growers expect new products to do two things, basically: 1) effectively control unwanted pests; and 2) not harm their crops. Until they feel confident that a new product can do both of these consistently, they won’t adopt the product into their normal pest management rotation. BASF understands that reality, and in fact we support the process wholeheartedly.

As summer rolled into fall it’s obvious that all three new products, Tower, FreeHand and Pageant, are meeting and exceeding growers’ expectations. Tower is showing good plant safety as a directed-spray preemergence herbicide in nurseries and landscapes. Some large container growers have been combining Tower with a DNA herbicide, like Pendulum® herbicide, and using the combination successfully as a preventive herbicide on graveled areas underneath container-grown nursery stock. Others have been using a similar tank mix on the soil surface of large (100 gal+) container-grown trees for long-lasting weed control. Similarly, FreeHand is showing excellent, broad-spectrum weed control on container-grown nursery stock from south Florida to the Pacific Northwest. Growers and landscape managers are seeing FreeHand control weeds that until now no product could control such as: liverwort, doveweed and yellow nutsedge. One comment I received from a large southern container grower was that his nursery never looked so clean since he started using FreeHand. And finally, Pageant, our new broad-spectrum foliar fungicide, is providing excellent disease control and unsurpassed plant safety. More and more commercial growers are working Pageant into their overall disease management rotation because it effectively controls their key foliar pathogens at a significantly lower price than other strobilurin-based fungicides. That’s outstanding performance at a reduced cost; what I like to call a great value.

Late this summer, we received some very positive news from field research being conducted by Dr. Joe Neal at North Carolina State University. Dr. Neal completed a study looking at the control of five different spurge weed species using several different preemergence herbicides. The five notorious spurges are: garden spurge, hyssop spurge, nodding spurge, spotted spurge and ground (or prostrate) spurge. Dr. Neal has noted that all five of these spurge species are established in southern nurseries and he felt that there were inconsistent levels of control with the current stable of herbicides on the market. In his trials completed this summer, only two herbicides consistently controlled all five spurge species: Tower and FreeHand. This supports our position that dimethenamid-p, the new active ingredient in these two herbicides, is not only providing control of the classic nursery weeds, but many of the newer emerging weed species as well. Prior studies from Dr. Neal’s research have shown that FreeHand is one of the longest-lasting preemergence herbicides in container nursery stock. This is excellent news to nursery growers and landscape managers that have been looking for new, effective alternatives for weed control.

If you have any questions about FreeHand or Pageant, please go to our www.betterplants.com home page. Click on the ‘online product training’ tab and take the interactive training for a more detailed review of our newest products.

So how have we fared this past year? Pretty well, I’d say, and 2009 looks to be even better. We have a few more new items to roll out next year, so stay tuned.

Merry Christmas to everyone and I hope you have a safe and blessed holiday season. We have much to be thankful for. I look forward to seeing many of you on the busy tradeshow circuit in January & February. Please take time to stop and visit with us and let us know how our new products are working out for you.

Until then – It’s Grow Time!