Can difenoconazole be used during the flowering period

It is best not to use difenoconazole during the flowering period, otherwise it will affect fruit set. Plants are best not sprayed with any pesticide during full bloom, so as not to affect normal pollination and fruit set. The most suitable spraying period for difenoconazole is the early stage of disease onset; try not to wait until losses have been caused by late-stage disease before spraying.

I. Target organisms controlled by difenoconazole

It has lasting protective and therapeutic activity against Ascomycota, Basidiomycota, and Deuteromycetes including Alternaria, Ascochyta, Cercospora, Colletotrichum, Guignardia, Phoma, Ramularia, Septoria and Venturia, as well as Erysiphaceae, Uredinales and certain seed-borne pathogens; at the same time it has relatively good therapeutic effects on sugar beet leaf spot, wheat glume blotch, wheat leaf blight, wheat rust, and molds caused by several pathogenic fungi, apple scab, apple powdery mildew, grape powdery mildew, potato early blight, peanut leaf spot, peanut net blotch and so on.

II. How to use difenoconazole

It is mainly used as a foliar treatment agent and a seed treatment agent. Among these, 10% difenoconazole water-dispersible granules are mainly used for stem and leaf treatment, at a dosage of 30-125 (a.i)/hm2; the application of 10% difenoconazole water-dispersible granules is mainly for controlling pear scab, apple alternaria leaf spot, tomato early blight, watermelon gummy stem blight, pepper anthracnose, strawberry powdery mildew, grape anthracnose, grape black pox, citrus scab and so on.

III. Precautions for difenoconazole

1. Difenoconazole should not be mixed with copper-based preparations. This is because copper-based preparations can reduce its fungicidal ability; if it really needs to be mixed with copper-based preparations, then the dosage of difenoconazole must be increased by more than 10%. Although difenoconazole is systemic and can be transported throughout the plant via conducting tissues, in order to ensure the control effect, the amount of water used for spraying must be sufficient, and the whole fruit tree is required to be sprayed evenly.

2. For watermelon, strawberry and pepper, the spray volume is 50 L per mu by hand. For fruit trees, the spray volume can be determined according to the size of the tree; large fruit trees have a high spray volume, while small fruit trees have the lowest spray volume. Application should be carried out in the morning or evening when the temperature is low and there is no wind. Application should be stopped when the relative air humidity on a sunny day is below 65%, the temperature is above 28 degrees, and the wind speed is greater than 5 m per second.

3. Although difenoconazole has both protective and therapeutic effects, in order to minimize the losses caused by disease, its protective effect should be brought into full play; therefore, the application time should be early rather than late, and spraying at the early stage of disease onset gives the best effect.

Although difenoconazole can prevent diseases in many kinds of plants, it is best to choose to spray it early, and it is best not to spray it during the flowering period, so as not to affect normal flower growth.