Indianapolis – Mancozeb, the active ingredient in Dow AgroSciences’ Dithane and Fore specialty fungicides, has successfully completed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency re-registration process required for all crop protection chemicals sold in the United States, according to the company.
Under United States law, all pesticides registered prior to 1984 must undergo re-registration, an evolving health and safety review process in which regulators seek new scientific data to address existing and hypothetical concerns.
“We are extremely pleased with this positive outcome to one of the most significant and rigorous regulatory reviews ever,” says Fabian Gil, Dow AgroSciences’ global business leader for Dithane fungicides. “This means that the health and environmental aspects of mancozeb have been thoroughly evaluated by the EPA, and U.S. growers can continue to rely on one of the most widely used fungicides in the world.”
The EPA requires some label changes based on its review. Dow AgroSciences and other mancozeb registrants voluntarily withdrew five uses – residential turf, foliar applications to cotton, pineapple propagation, athletic fields and use on pachysandra.
“No significant negative impacts are anticipated in the user community, as alternatives exist to control disease problems,” Gil says. “We determined that these uses were seldom employed, and the costs to generate required data could not be economically justified.”
Dow AgroSciences remains committed to all of the other uses on the label, including golf courses, sod farms, nurseries, greenhouses and numerous agricultural crops, and anticipates adding new uses in the future as part of a separate registration effort.
Dithane and Fore are members of a family of fungicides known as ethylene bisdithiocarbamates.
Dow AgroSciences re-registers mancozeb
Mancozeb, the active ingredient in Dow AgroSciences’ Dithane and Fore specialty fungicides, has successfully completed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency re-registration process.