Quilt a “New” Fungicide Option for Small Grain Leaf Diseases

By Tracy Sayler

Quilt™ is a new fungicide available for wheat and barley this growing season, although to be precise, the Syngenta product is actually a combination of two fungicide chemistries the company already has available: Tilt® (propiconazole 11.7%) and Quadris® (azoxystrobin 7.0%)

According to Syngenta, the two modes of action in Quilt combine for broader spectrum disease control, providing “curative, protectant and eradicant activity against all stages of fungal pathogens (spore germination, mycelial growth and sporulation).”

The company says Quilt protects against some of the most damaging foliar diseases, including Septoria, powdery mildew and rusts. For early season suppression of powdery mildew, leaf blotch, glume blotch and tan spot, Syngenta advises using a reduced rate of 7 oz/ac. The standard rate, 14 oz/ac, controls Puccinia rusts (leaf, stripe and stem), powdery mildew, leaf blight, Septoria leaf blight and glume blotch, tan spot, Helminthosporium leaf blight, barley scald, barley stripe, net blotch and kernel blight.

Quilt can be applied by ground, air or chemigation. Quilt can be applied up to Feekes 9, but optimum timing is when Quilt is applied as the flag leaf reaches 50 to 70% emergence, according to Syngenta.

Marcia McMullen, extension plant pathologist at North Dakota State University, says strobilurin containing fungicides such as Quilt, Quadris, Headline, and Stratego (another combination product, triazole/propiconazole plus
trifloxystrobin) have excellent activity against fungal leaf spot diseases such as tan spot and Septoria. 

McMullen says she is still gathering performance data on Quilt, as last year was the first growing season she has evaluated the product.  She tested it in an early-season trial to control tan spot, and another where Tilt and Quilt were compared for leaf spot control when applied at flag leaf. 

In the early season study, both were applied at the 4-5 leaf stage to Oxen spring wheat; Tilt was applied at 2 oz and Quilt at 7 oz.  Both products performed very similarly in leaf spot disease control and in yield enhancement (4.6 bu over untreated check). 

In the flag leaf application study, Quilt was applied at the full rate application of 14 fl oz, and it was compared to Tilt, Headline, Folicur and Stratego, all at full label rates for one application.  All products performed almost identically in leaf spot disease control and all gave similar yield responses, she says. 

University of Minnesota extension plant pathologist Charla Hollingsworth also evaluated Quilt in trials last year near Crookston. She says tests on the spring wheat variety Ingot showed that Quilt (applied at nearly full label 13.68 fl oz at flag leaf), Stratego, and Tilt (full labeled rates) had the same yield advantages over the nontreated treatment, while Headline and Quadris had statistically better yields. She again tested Quilt at 10.26 fl. oz applied at flag leaf, with no statistical yield difference compared to Stratego, Tilt, or Headline, and with Quadris holding a slight statistical yield advantage. The best yield response in 2003 was achieved with a flag leaf application of Quilt at 13.68 fl. oz. without adding a nonionic surfactant (as in the above applications). “Those yield results put Quilt on even footing with Stratego, Tilt, Headline, and Quadris,” she says, adding that the product will be tested again this year.

EmmettLampert, technical sales support representative with Syngenta, says Tilt is an excellent choice as a tank-mix partner applied early with a broadleaf herbicide for early-season disease control, and later in the season, up to flowering (Feekes 10.5). Quilt is probably a better choice applied at flag leaf, or applied without a tank mix partner.  “If you apply 7 oz of Quilt early in the season, you also have the option of coming back with 4 oz of Tilt either at flag leaf or post heading,” he says.

Last year, there were reports of some plant injury with certain herbicide/fungicide tank mixes, that may have been weather related.  Assessment of Quilt as a tank mix partner is limited; Lampert says further evaluation of the product with different herbicide combinations will be completed this growing season. “So for now if you want to tank mix with a broadleaf herbicide such as Bronate, we recommend growers use Tilt,” he says.

McMullen adds that when fungicides are tank mixed with herbicides, an additional adjuvant for the fungicide generally is not recommended. The herbicides often have their own adjuvant, and additional ones could cause crop burning.

Full label information for Quilt can be found online at www.cdms.net . Click on the link “Labels & MSDS,” then type in “Quilt” under U.S. Agriculture/Crop Protection.