Scott Walker, CEO of GB Potatoes, said: “Following the announcement that mancozeb would be withdrawn from use in the UK at the end of the 2025 season, GB Potatoes explored the feasibility of progressing an Emergency Authorisation (EA) application to allow a continued use on potato crops. An EA permitting the use of mancozeb for the 2026 season, would have delivered a significant resistance management benefit at a time of increasing pressure from blight resistance.
“With support from Horticulture Crop Protection Ltd (HCP), a small group of technical experts was convened to develop an application and to engage constructively with the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) on what would be required for approval. Positive engagement with the authorisation holder, UPL, enabled productive pre-application discussions to take place.
“However, through these discussions it became clear that, in order to meet HSE risk assessment requirements, any authorisation would be limited to a single application of mancozeb per crop. Such a restriction would not be commercially viable given the additional stewardship requirements that would need to be put in place, and the agronomists involved advised that a single application would deliver only very limited resistance management benefit.
“As a result, and with great disappointment, the decision was taken not to proceed with an Emergency Authorisation application for mancozeb. All possible avenues were explored, and we are very grateful for constructive liaison with HSE as well as the time and effort invested by the team at HCP and by Eric Anderson (Scottish Agronomy), Ruairidh Bain (SRUC), Graham Tomalin (VCS Potatoes) and David Cooke (JHI).”