Limburgerhof, Germany
March 7, 2007
- Control of important soybean
leaf diseases, including soybean rust
- 450 MINILABs installed in 14 Brazilian states
At the "Tech for Food" event on
March 06, 2007 in Paris - a high calibre forum to enhance
agricultural development and food supply -
BASF presents MINILAB,
a disease monitoring tool that helps farm-ers in Brazil to be
more successful by controlling soybean diseases properly.
The Asian soybean rust is a severe soybean disease caused by the
fungus Phakopsora pachyrhizi. Until recently this disease did
not occur in the western hemisphere. It spread to South America
in 2001 and was found for the first time in North America in
2004.
Asian soybean rust results in a quick defoliation that reduces
the number of pods, grains and grain weight. According to
EMBRAPA (Brazilian Agricultural Research Agency) the estimated
losses for Brazil sum up to US$ 7.7 billion since the 2001/2002
season, when Phakopsora pachyrhizi was first detected in the
country. Weekly monitoring is the single most important
procedure in order to identify Asian rust. Growers and
technicians must be aware of information in their regions, since
the chances of controlling the disease are higher when the
fungus is detected in an early stage. Just-in-time fungicide
treatment is essential in order to avoid the spread of the
pathogen, following the principles of an Integrated Disease
Man-agement Program.
In order to prevent spreading of diseases, BASF developed
MINILAB - a free of charge disease monitoring tool that allows
soybean farmers to evaluate their fields, leading to the
appropriate control of important leaf diseases, including
soybean rust. 450 MINILABS have been installed in 14 Brazilian
states covering all the important soybean regions. Each MINILAB
unit can evaluate samples of 60 growers. BASF also provides a
full training program for distributors and sales persons. 35
trainings were carried out since the launch of the project at
the end of 2005, and approximately 1,300 people are now able to
operate MINILAB.
Until February 2007, more than 2,100 occurrences of Asian rust
were registered. As a consequence, disease control is more
effective than ever before. The diagnoses provided by the
MINILABs are very impor-tant for avoiding damages resulting from
late control of diseases, insuf-ficient or excessive spraying,
or other unnecessary expenses. MINILAB is an important
contribution to sustainable agriculture in Brazil. For more
information, see under
www.agro.basf.com.br
With sales of €3,079 million in 2006, BASF’s Agricultural
Products division is a leader in crop protection and a strong
partner to the farming industry providing well-established and
innovative fungicides, insecticides and herbicides. Farm-ers use
these products and services to improve crop yields and crop
quality. Other uses include public health, structural/urban pest
control, turf and orna-mental plants, vegetation management, and
forestry. BASF aims to turn kno-wledge rapidly into market
success. The vision of BASF’s Agricultural Prod-ucts division is
to be the world’s leading innovator, optimizing agricultural
pro-duction, improving nutrition, and thus enhancing the quality
of life for a grow-ing world population. Further information can
be found on the web at
www.agro.basf.com.
BASF is the world’s leading chemical company: The Chemical
Company. Its portfolio ranges from chemicals, plastics,
performance products, agricultural products and fine chemicals
to crude oil and natural gas. As a reliable partner to virtually
all industries, BASF’s high-value products and intelligent
system solutions help its customers to be more successful. BASF
develops new tech-nologies and uses them to meet the challenges
of the future and open up ad-ditional market opportunities. It
combines economic success with environ-mental protection and
social responsibility, thus contributing to a better future.
BASF has over 95,000 employees and posted sales of €52.6 billion
(approxi-mately $66.1 billion) in 2006. Further information on
BASF is available on the Internet at
www.basf.com. |
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