Date:12/10/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/10/12/stories/2008101259800400.htm

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

New insecticide launched

Special Correspondent

Coragen will target pests on paddy, sugarcane
It has high potency and low mammalian toxicity

HYDERABAD: DuPont Crop Protection on Saturday launched Coragen, a new insecticide, which enables higher crop yield.

Addressing a press conference here, South Asia Director of the company Ram Madhorkar said that Coragen would target lepidopteran pests on paddy, sugarcane, cotton, cabbage and cauliflower. It would eventually be developed for application on pulses, soybean, pigeon-pea and other vegetables.

Mr. Madhorkar said that the company’s field force would educate the distributors, dealers and farmers on the application of the insecticide. Rajul Edoliya, manager of R&D, said that Coragen had the unique quality of percolating down in a plant once sprayed on it.

It should be alternated with non-Group 28 insecticides, whose details would be provided to the farmers at the time of purchase.

Cost-effective

It was cost-effective in the sense that it need not be sprayed as many times as the other insecticides would have to be and also the quantity for every application was much less. For instance, it was 60 ml mixed in 200 litres of water for an acre of paddy crop.

He said it had high potency against the targets and low mammalian toxicity. The product would be commercially available across the country by mid-November.