The EPA recently approved the registration of Syngenta’s newest active ingredient, Plinazolin, which it has introduced into five new insecticides, three labeled for vegetables, tree fruit and onions.
The products released are part of a new mode of action in IRAC Group 30, which is a new class of chemistries for specialty crops.
The new products for specialty crops include:
- Vertento
- Incipio
- Zivalgo
“This is a product that we have been waiting on for a number of years,” Chris Clemens, agronomy services manager at Syngenta, says of Vertento.
The company says it has spent the past 12 years in research and development and conducted more than 3,000 trials in the U.S. on Plinazolin. The global agricultural science and technology company says growers will be able to deploy the specific insecticides that use Plinazolin in 2026.
New Solution for Onion Growers
Labeled for onions, Vertento is a foliar-applied insecticide for thrips and mites.
“Thrips are a rasping, sucking pest, where they walk up and down the leaf and they scrape on the leaf, and it interferes with the production of chlorophyll, and overall, leads to lower yields,” Clemens says.
He says Vertento offers growers a new mode of action in IRAC Group 30. He says Syngenta has trialed the product in New York, Michigan, Georga, Idaho, Oregon and Washington and has seen excellent performance.
Clemens says this is a much-needed introduction for onion growers who have limited tools against thrips, as there could be potential resistance against existing products on the market. He says another important point is that Vertento shows no cross-resistance to older compounds, as it is a new mode of action.
“Having a new mode of action for a pest that requires anywhere from three to six or more applications is critically important to the industry so that we can preserve the life of those previous insecticides that have been around that we want to keep them effective,” he says.
New Solution for Vegetables
Brassica, leafy, fruiting vegetable and cucurbit growers have a new tool in Incipio. Clemens says brassica growers will see a big benefit to deploying Incipio against diamondback moth.
“Diamondback moth has become a particularly difficult insect to control in brassicas, and it’s a similar situation that we have with Vertento and thrips and onions in that we don’t have as many tools as we used to have,” he says. “The new IRAC group 30 mode of action and its inherent efficacy against diamondback moth is going to make it an excellent new tool.”
Clemens says Syngenta has trialed Incipio in Arizona and California and has seen excellent results.
“We have done a lot of trial work in Arizona and California, where the length of control and the overall performance within Incipio is improved versus some of the old standards that include the IRAC group 28 and pyrethroids and other insecticides out there. … We’ve got confirmed resistance in California and Arizona, and growers have unfortunately seen much less efficacy with any of the products that contain chlorantraniliprole,” he says.
Clemens says along with federal registration, several states have also registered Incipio. He says along with diamondback moth, Incipio also offers effective control of western flower thrips.
New Solution for Fruit, Potato Growers
Syngenta has tested its Zivalgo foliar insecticide for many years with university and private contractors in the Pacific Northwest, Clemens says. In pome fruit, Zivalgo has shown good control for many pests.
“We’ve seen excellent performance against coddling moth, oblique banded leafroller, which is another lepidopteran pest that comes early in the year,” he says. “Excellent efficacy on mites, including European red mite and two spotted spider mites, and then also thrips as well, and all of those are pests and apples in pears, where we have an industry that relies heavily on insecticide applications for managing pear psyllid and we’ve seen excellent control there as well.”
Zivalgo is also labeled for citrus for control against thrips.
“Zivalgo has performed really well on thrips and citrus and trials in California over the last several years, very much, like with Vertento, we’re down to a limited number of efficacious insecticides that still remain,” Clemens says. “Over the last two years, working in the San Joaquin Valley, the best performer by far has been Zivalgo, at the high rate there, against the other competitors that are out there.”
And Zivalgo is also labeled for broad-spectrum control of Colorado potato beetles.
“The performance and activity that we’ve seen with Zivalgo on Colorado potato beetle is just outstanding,” he says. “We’ve tested it for several years against a number of different competitors under extraordinarily high pressure, and the clear winner in potato foliage protection has been with Zivalgo each of the last two years. So, excellent control there, even under extreme pressure.”
