June 2008
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- Pageant is a broad spectrum foliar fungicide that controls virtually all foliar ornamental disease pathogens.
- FreeHand has the broadest weed control spectrum along with the highest degree of plant safety of any preemergence herbicide I have ever seen for container-grown ornamentals and landscape plantings.
BASF is in the business of discovery and innovation. We are committed to discovering new, novel chemicals that effectively control damaging pests. That sounds straightforward enough, but it is not as simple as it appears. To get from the discovery phase to delivering a product for sale requires hundreds of millions of dollars and upwards of ten years to identify a specific molecule, develop and research its attributes, and then steward it through a rigorous regulatory process at the federal and state levels. Development, research and formulation all require innovation – a challenge BASF addresses with astonishing effectiveness. The goal is to deliver effective products that consistently control the target pest(s) over a wide range of environmental conditions with a high degree of safety to the applicator and the surrounding environment. No small task, indeed, and certainly not one for the faint of heart (or limited financial means). But this is what we do at BASF, and if I say so, we do it pretty well. Let’s face it, without new, innovative products, BASF would be just another chemical manufacturer selling tired, old products, and growers would be stuck using these same tired, old products to control their pests with diminishing results. The good news is that BASF has very robust product pipeline that is on the verge of flooding the ornamentals market with some terrific new pest management solutions.
I have been working in the ornamentals pest management arena for almost 31 years. Companies like BASF get to launch a new product every couple of years, on average. If we are lucky, once every 10 years we get to launch a ‘blockbuster’ product – something that is really unique, something that sets a new standard. In 2008, BASF T&O group will introduce not one, but two potential ‘blockbuster’ products for ornamental growers: Pageant™ Fungicide and FreeHand™ 1.75G Herbicide. These two products likely will become the industry standards in their respective categories:
These are both bold statements, but from what I’ve seen, both statements are true!
The amazing story here is that each of these products alone would represent a potential blockbuster. Both products are the result of years of lab and field research, hours of formulation chemistry, and even more hours of data review, label writing and regulatory scrutiny. For one company to launch one new product in a year is a big undertaking, but to launch two in one year is, well, overwhelming! Add to these two new product launches, BASF has three other new products that are being introduced this year: Tower™ Herbicide, Segment™ Herbicide and Stature® SC Fungicide. It’s enough to make a marketing manager’s head spin…and our ad agency grin.
So hang on to your hats, boys and girls – BASF is going have a very active summer! To support our blockbuster moment, we will host six regional launch meetings across the US: Greenville, SC (at the Southeast Greenhouse Growers Conference), Orlando, FL, Mobile, AL, Columbus, OH (at the OFA Short Course), Houston, TX and Portland, OR. Articles and ads aplenty are showing up in the industry trade publications. I hope we see you at one of the launch meetings (you can RSVP for one of the meetings at: www.betterplants.com/RSVP). More importantly, get involved in the blockbuster extravaganza yourselves – buy some Pageant and FreeHand and try them out at your place!
That’s it for now. It’s grow time!
