There are hundreds of different plant protection products on the market at present. Many of these are similar, made up of the original branded products and then the generic products, which try to copy those original products. In recent years, there seems to be even more of these products on the market.

Both are valuable to the farmer. The original products are of course innovative at their time and millions of euros go into discovering those products, which often provide a new tool or mode of action at their release which is useful in plant protection.

These products have a patent at the time of launching. Once the patent runs out after 20 years, they can then be produced as generics by other companies who try and replicate the product. Once products go off patent, other companies can legally start to try and copy and sell these products.

It creates competition in the market and usually brings down the price of the product – which is a good thing for the farmer.

Proline is probably one of the most recent examples of this. The product with the active ingredient prothioconazole is probably one of the most famous fungicides in the world.

It was ground breaking at its launch. It came off patent in Ireland in 2018 and numerous variations of it came onto the market. Its price has dropped since then.

However, one thing that is almost certain is that no product on the market will be the same as the original Proline, so while they will all contain the active ingredient prothioconazole, they will not be formulated in the same way.

When submitting to the authorities for registration, the generic product needs to be 95% similar for the active ingredient.

Generic glyphosate

So while the chemical creators say the generics are not the same, is it true? Well, we can’t say this for all products, but we do know that Teagasc has outlined issues with generic glyphosate.

Research from Teagasc has shown that some generic glyphosate products do not perform as well as the original Roundup products.

Teagasc research has shown that 1l/ha more product is needed for some generic glyphosate 360g/l products compared to original 360g/l products when controlling weeds like brome, canary grass, blackgrass and Italian ryegrass. So, if more product is needed to control weeds, it means that the product is not working as well as the original.

This can cause problems with control, but also with resistance build up. If products require higher rates, but farmers do not know this because they assume the products are the same – which they have no reason not to – then this could have massive implications for resistance build up.

This is because a farmer could be applying the correct rate of product according to the label, but they don’t know that the product doesn’t work as well and requires a higher rate.

This leads to poor control and can result in resistance build up.

Plant protection products

Speaking to Gareth Bubb, commercial technical manager with Bayer Crop Science, he explained that when Bayer is developing a product, the formulation changes numerous times and is often tweaked again when the product goes on the market to adapt to changing scenarios.

Gareth explained that when developing a formulation, which is the mix of the active ingredient and the other ingredients in the can to make it spray, it’s a balance between getting the product to work as well as it possibly can, achieve good efficacy and be safe to use, along with many other factors like tank mixing for example.

Gareth said that in absolutely perfect conditions there are less differences between formulations.

“In ag we are very unlikely to have perfect conditions. We do trials and there are massive differences. You can put the same number of grammes of an active on, whether it be a fungicide, a herbicide and they can perform very differently,” he commented.

On that, he added that from year-to-year weather conditions and pressure on the plant protection product to work will vary.

“Sometimes one formulation might be the top in one year and it might be the lowest in the next year. That’s no good for a farmer. When we’re investing in products we want it to be consistent and it’s got to be consistent in all weather conditions for different weeds and different scenarios.”

He noted that Bayer spend about €3b in research and development in crop science every year: “That’s where the expertise and innovation come from. It’s really difficult to mimic that from other formulations because they don’t put the work in from it.”

Products are developed in the lab and spend about four years in field trials before making it to the market. Gareth commented that much more products fail than actually succeed in these stages and most don’t make it to market.

He explained that things that go wrong with formulations are that they might not be stable, might not be sustainable, might not penetrate the leaf for the efficacy, they might not last long or the product could damage the plant. These are all things that need to be kept an eye on.

“When we’re investing in products we want it to be consistent; and it’s got to be consistent in all weather conditions for different weeds and different scenarios,” he explained. Gareth added that things like rain fastness, how the product spreads on the leaf and how it penetrates the leaf all contribute to how the product works, and this comes down to how the product is formulated and how the other ingredients in the can, which are not the active ingredient, work.

A small percentage of the total product is the active ingredient. The remainder is made up of adjuvants and technology to make it move into the plant and spray properly. Getting the active ingredient into the plant efficiently is important. However, Gareth commented that it’s a fine balance because if a product goes into the leaf too quickly it could damage the crop.

What product to choose?

When it comes to a farmer choosing what product to use it’s a difficult decision. Some will have limited options at their retailers, while others will have loads of choice. With the branded product you know what you are getting. With the generics one could be a very good copy of the original product, while another could be a poor copy and this could result in poor efficacy, but in a low disease pressure year maybe this would not have that big of an impact.

Gareth had a good analogy. He said that two people could make a cake and use the exact same ingredients to make that cake, but they are likely to look and taste very different. All the different plant protection products on the market, with the same active ingredients, are likely to be very different too.