According to the Insecticide Resistance Action Committee, insecticide resistance in the United States contributes to $40 million in grower spending costs to cover the payment of additional treatments or alternative controls. That’s one of the main reasons BASF has invested so heavily in their insecticide pipeline.
At this year’s Commodity Classic, BASF announced the company is launching three new insectide products.
“We’re really happy about our pipeline because we have a diverse pipeline,” said Jared O’Connell, Global Marketing Manage, Insecticides, BASF.
Inscalis, which was submitted for regulatory approval in April 2016, is expected to be launched commercially in the U.S. in 2019. Inscalis is the pioneer solution from a novel chemical class, the pyropenes, offering an alternative mode of action for the control of key insect pests and providing an essential tool to farmers for use in resistance and integrated pest management programs. The insecticide is geared to control critical piercing and sucking insect pests such as aphids, whiteflies, psyllids, scales, and leafhoppers.
O’Connell said another benefit of Inscalis is the product also works on a narrow spectrum so it has a very favorable environmental profile. Extensive research has demonstrated its excellent selective performance against a range of damaging insect pests.
BASF has also introduced two more insecticides that should come to market in next five years, O’Connell said.
Broflanilide, submitted for registration in November 2017, is a new insecticide for chewing crop pests and non-crop pests. A compound with a novel mode of action, the insecticide has demonstrated excellent efficacy in the control of many problematic chewing insect pests, including caterpillars and beetles in specialty and row crops, and non-crop pests such as termites, ants, cockroaches, and flies. O’Connell said Broflanilide also shows strong potential in cereals as a seed treatment for control of wireworms.
Finally, a third insecticide, that was just promoted out of BASF’s development pipeline, will also tackle piercing and sucking pests.
“Almost half of the global crop production is lost each year – 13 percent on average to disease, 13 percent to weeds, and up to 26 percent to insects. A lot of that is preharvest, about 16 percent, but 10 percent postharvest,” O’Connell said. “We know it’s important for growers to protect against insect pests both preharvest and postharvest because they could really lose a lot of their yield and a lot of their crop, which has an economic impact of $470 billion per year.”
