Captan Shortage

Written by

Phil Brannen

February 13, 2021

I have heard rumors of a potential captan product shortage, and based on information that is coming in from the field, it appears to be true. I am not sure of the details as to why we have a shortage of captan in the marketplace, and I have no information as to when the shortage will be alleviated. However, the good news is that thiram products, assuming you can readily obtain these fungicides, are pretty much a straight plug-in for captan products relative strawberry disease control. Thiram is probably not quite as active as captan for anthracnose, but it is close. Of course, other products are also available for the multiple diseases that occur on strawberry, but captan and thiram mainly address Botrytis and anthracnose diseases; fungi do not readily develop resistance to these fungicides, so they continue to provide an important backbone for our spray programs. As always, please contact your local extension agent if you have questions concerning this or other issues with strawberries. The IPM guide for strawberries can be found at the link below.

https://smallfruits.org/files/2020/12/2021-Strawberry-IPM-Guide.pdf

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Phil Brannen

Phil Brannen is a Professor in the Plant Pathology Department at the University of Georgia. He attended the University of Georgia for his undergraduate degree in Plant Protection and Pest Management, where he also received an M.S. in Plant Pathology, followed by a Ph.D. in Plant Pathology from Auburn University. He has extensive experience with disease management programs in numerous cropping systems. He serves as the extension fruit pathologist for Georgia – conducting research and technology transfer for multiple fruit commodities. His efforts are directed towards developing IPM practices to solve disease issues and technology transfer of disease-management methods to commercial fruit producers. He also teaches the graduate level Field Pathology Course, the History of Plant Diseases and their Impact on Human Societies Course, team-teaches the IPM Course, coordinates the Viticulture and Enology in the Mediterranean Region Course (Cortona, Italy), and guest lectures in numerous other courses throughout the year.