March 5, 2014

Fungicide displays extra potential as shelf life extender

When Bayer CropScience developed Luna, the company’s objective was to come up with an effective fungicide. The story of Luna has now taken a surprising twist: it is showing additional potential as a way to extend shelf life through improved crop quality.

The new use for Luna is sufficiently promising that the company is working through the process of gaining an additional registration as a crop quality treatment.

“This is something we recently discovered and we want to get it right the first time,” said Rob Schrick, strategic business management lead for horticulture with Bayer CropScience. “We’re very confident in Luna as a fungicide and that’s where our primary focus is. But this new discovery is an extra benefit, like a new app to your smartphone that you’re really going to enjoy.”

Luna was launched as a fungicide in 2012, and is now registered for seven crops, including apples, cherries, tree nuts, wine grapes, potatoes and watermelons. Bayer is working to extend that registration and establish global maximum residue limits for other fruit and vegetable crops, with a goal of having the work done by the 2015 growing season.

In the lengthy process of developing Luna, Bayer scientists have discovered that the fungicide also possesses the potential to add shelf life to crops, most notably apples and cherries, when applied in the orchard and field.

“When we discover a compound, it takes 8 to 12 years of development working with regulatory authorities and making sure we clearly understand the attributes of it,” Schrick said. “In those trials with Luna we really see a difference in the finished product. So it was our development folks saying, ‘there’s something special here and we need to dig into this further.’ That’s the stage we’re in now — to get complete understanding of what this product’s really bringing.”

The new application would not be a postharvest spray, but would be applied in the same way as any other crop protection material, Schrick said. Luna would fit into an existing spray regimen as a mid- to late-season spray. The objective would be to “have a crop so clean, so disease-free that when you harvest it, it retains firmness and color and can extend its natural longevity.”

Evaluation of Luna’s shelf-life extension is continuing on a variety of fronts, including comparing crops treated with Luna versus untreated crops in extended storage tests and comparing the results to market standards. Bayer is also working with university researchers to tap into their third-party expertise as the company evaluates Luna’s capabilities. Bayer local and global development groups are participating in this product evaluation to gain a clearer picture of Luna’s benefits, Schrick said.

Growers art a part of this evaluation as well. The added use for Luna is already being evaluated on crops for which it is registered as a fungicide, and Bayer is testing Luna on small plots of other crops, such as lettuce, strawberries and peaches. One focus of the testing is the timing of sprays.

“Can you achieve that disease-free crop that you’re seeking and do we need to tweak the timing a little earlier or later to get the greatest benefits on the post-harvest attribute?” Schrick said.

The use of Luna for extending the shelf life of these and other crops may gain a label by 2016, Schrick said.

Lee Dean, editorial director





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