Is this what the future will look like without Rubigan?

The Gowan Company announced yesterday that it will cease Rubigan sales on December 31, 2012. Gowan has already removed fenarimol from most other markets and is reserving the remaining active ingredient for turf and certain fruits where its usage is most important. This means that limited amounts of Rubigan will be available through next December. Gowan plans to distribute the remaining product based on past sales history, so areas that have used the most in the past will get the most.

Why is Rubigan being removed from the market? It’s strictly a business decision, as Rubigan usage has steadily declined over the years. New DMI fungicides with less growth regulating activity drastically reduced its market share in the northern US. The sulfonylurea herbicides have all but eliminated Rubigan use for pre-emergence control of Poa annua on warm-season grasses. Less expensive options for spring dead spot control have been emerging.

Many people have asked if another company will pick up and market fenarimol. While that is a possibility, it seems unlikely given the size of the market compared to the regulatory costs that would be involved.

So do we still need Rubigan? In most cases, the answer is probably ‘no’ as there are effective alternatives available in most situations.

One exception is spring dead spot control, where Rubigan has been a staple for many years. Fortunately, newer products like Torque and Headway have emerged as effective alternatives for SDS control in fairways, tees, roughs, and athletic fields. If you’d like to see the results from our past spring dead spot trials, go to our Fungicide Performance Testing page and filter the list of reports by ‘spring dead spot’ and the product(s) you are interested in.

Spring dead spot control on bermudagrass putting greens is a completely different story. Products like Torque and Headway have not provided consistent control under the higher disease pressure experienced on greens, so Rubigan continues to be the product of choice. Rubigan’s disappearance could spell trouble for superintendents with bermudagrass greens, especially those in the northern range of bermudagrass adaptation where spring dead spot pressure is highest.

So, we need to get to work on finding alternatives for spring dead spot control in bermudagrass greens. We are already modifying the spring dead spot studies we had planned for this fall and designing additional experiments to look at Rubigan alternatives, as I’m sure several other pathologists are. I’m confident that we’ll come up with some effective and economical options so that Rubigan’s removal from the market will be a mere bump in the road.