Fighting Fungi and Frost: Securing Efficacy Trials in the Field

Recently, our team was tasked with evaluating fungicide efficacy against Pear Stemphylium (Brown Spot), a devastating fungal disease that causes significant yield losses by attacking both leaves and fruits with aggressive circular spots.

🛡️ The Treatment Strategy: Controlling Stemphylium requires rigorous crop protection from early flowering all the way until the fruit reaches 90% of its final size. Depending on the product’s mode of action, this involves 4 to 8 targeted fungicide applications.

📉 The Climatic Challenge: During the trial, the chosen site faced a severe frost risk. A hard freeze at this vulnerable stage would have completely destroyed the young flowers and leaves, resulting in a ruined crop and a canceled trial.

💧 The Staphyt Solution: To save the trial and secure our client’s data, our dedicated field technician quickly implemented active frost protection via water sprinkling. By continuously spraying water over the plot during the freeze, the young leaves and flowers were encased in ice. This ice layer actually forms an insulating barrier, protecting the plant tissues from the lethal ambient temperatures.

Thanks to this rapid, hands-on intervention, the young leaves and future fruits were perfectly preserved. The trial continues, ensuring we deliver the reliable, high-quality efficacy data our clients expect.

Securing agronomic data requires both scientific rigor and field-ready problem solving. Thank you to our field technicians for their constant reactivity! 👏