Author: bwest

 

By Bob West

Farmers across the country have been steadily incorporating more organic and biological products into their crop protection programs, and this trend is evident in California as well, as seen in the PURE Intel data from Meister Media Worldwide. PURE Intel+™ and PURE Intel PCA (patent pending) are comprehensive databases providing subscribers with tremendous insights into California farmers’ crop protection programs. Full-year application data for 2022 shows 4,386,324 treated acres of organic products (defined as carrying the OMRI designation on the label) compared to 4,273,009 treated acres in 2021. (see chart below)

 

Application Type	2020		2021		2022
	Treated Acres	% of Total	Treated Acres	% of Total	Treated Acres	% of Total
Conventional applications	85.8 million	84%	77.2 million	83%	74.2 million	83%
Biopesticide applications	12.4 million	12%	11.3 million	12%	11.0 million	12%
Organic applications	4.5 million	4%	4.3 million	5%	4.4 million	5%

 

Interestingly, the farmers reported slightly more than 3,000 fewer actual applications of organic products in 2022 vs. 2021, which translates to a 4% increase in the average number of treated acres per application in 2022. The PURE Intel data also includes fewer California farmers reporting an organic product application in 2022 than 2021 (8,371 in 2021 vs. 7,900 in 2022), which was essentially consistent with the overall trend in the number of farms reporting applications of any type.

Adjuvants represented the bulk of organic product applications in the Golden State in the 2022 (nearly 65% of treated acres), follow by fungicides (26%) and insecticides (5%). Helena’s Kinetic® adjuvant was the most widely applied organic product in 2022 with 759 growers reporting making an application, which resulted in more than 460,000 treated acres of the product.

Brand	2022 Treated Acres	% of Organic Treated Acres
Kinetic	465,555	10.6%
Syl-Coat	447,442	10.2%
Miller Nu Film P	349,906	8.0%
Freeway	268,842	6.1%
Plant Health Technologies Vestis	207,080	4.7%
Tri-Fol	204,700	4.7%
Kocide 3000-O	188,515	4.3%
Nu-Cop HB	172,242	3.9%
Entrust SC	155,808	3.6%
Oroboost	94,538	3.4%

 

 

Bob West is the Direct of Meister Media’s data business. For more information about this data or for more details about Meister’s PURE Intel+ and PURE Intel+ PCA (patent pending) products, contact him at 440-602-9129 or [email protected].

PURE Intel is a trademark of Meister Media Worldwide. PURE Intel+ PCA is patent pending.

About PURE Intel

Meister Media’s PURE Intel platform offers subscribers comprehensive insights into California’s specialty agriculture market by aggregating monthly crop protection product application data from approximately 20,000 California farms and providing that data through a user-friendly, web-based platform that enables subscribers to customize their data queries.

 

By Bob West

As California’s farmers work to catch up on applications that were delayed due to the heavy rains experienced in the first quarter of 2023, a preliminary look at first-quarter application data reported by Meister Media’s PURE Intel™ platform shows wide variation for different product types.

For all product types on all crops, treated acreage looks to be down 8% to 14% vs. the same period last year. But while insect-control products look to be impacted most severely (down approximately -30% to -35% vs. Q1 2022) and herbicide applications also appear down to start the year (-6% to -10%), the story on fungicides is clearly different.

The state’s farmers have already reported more than 2.8 million treated acres of 539 different fungicide brands for January – March 2023 compared to reporting 2.5 million treated acres for Q1 2022 initially by April 10, 2022. And approximately half of all fungicide brands show growth in treated acreage thus far in 2023 vs. the previous year. (California farmers are required to report restricted-use product applications to their respective county department of agriculture by the 10^th of each month for the previous month, but many growers miss that deadline for various reasons. PURE Intel updates treated acre numbers monthly for one year beyond the required reporting date in order to capture all late data.) Ultimately, we project the final treated acreage number for fungicides in Q1 2023 will be between 3.4 million and 3.8 million treated acres, which represents nearly 20% growth over 2022.

This roughly 10% increase in fungicide treated acres is even more noteworthy when considering that PURE Intel categorizes sulfur as a fungicide given that farmers typically apply it for disease control. Sulfur applications are down approximately 55% through the first three months of the year. So, applications of non-sulfur fungicides have been particularly strong to start 2023, especially when compared to other product categories.

 

Bob West is the Direct of Meister Media’s data business. For more information about this data or for more details about Meister’s PURE Intel+ and PURE Intel+ PCA (patent pending) products, contact him at 440-602-9129 or [email protected].

PURE Intel is a trademark of Meister Media Worldwide. PURE Intel+ PCA is patent pending.

About PURE Intel

Meister Media’s PURE Intel platform offers subscribers comprehensive insights into California’s specialty agriculture market by aggregating monthly crop protection product application data from approximately 20,000 California farms and providing that data through a user-friendly, web-based platform that enables subscribers to customize their data queries.

 

by Bob West

“When it rains, it pours” has never been more true than in California to start 2023. Heavy rains covered much of the state in December 2022 and January 2023, which obviously helped mitigate the state’s drought challenges. However, much of the rainfall was so intense that many farmers were unable to get into their fields and make their normal January applications of restricted use products (RUP).

In fact, preliminary January data reported by Meister Media’s PURE Intel(TM) platform forecasts that the state’s farmers made as many as 80,000 fewer RUP applications in January than in January 2022 (a decrease of roughly 40%), which is the lowest application volume for the first month of the year ever reported by PURE Intel. As the chart below illustrates, the slow start to the year extends the number of farms reporting any January applications, the number of sites treated in January, and the number of applications of RUP products made across the state.

Fortunately, January is not a particularly intensive month for pesticide applications in California — roughly 5% of the total number of applications occur in January — so farmers shouldn’t have much difficulty catching up.

 

Bob West is the Direct of Meister Media’s data business. For more information about this data or for more details about Meister’s PURE Intel+ and PURE Intel+ PCA (patent pending) products, contact him at 440-602-9129 or [email protected].

PURE Intel is a trademark of Meister Media Worldwide. PURE Intel+ PCA is patent pending.

About PURE Intel

Meister Media’s PURE Intel platform offers subscribers comprehensive insights into California’s specialty agriculture market by aggregating monthly crop protection product application data from approximately 20,000 California farms and providing that data through a user-friendly, web-based platform that enables subscribers to customize their data queries.

By Bob West

In January, Meister Media’s PURE Intel™ platform published its initial report of December 2022 restricted-use product (RUP) applications for California agriculture, which also provides the first look at the most widely used brands by the state’s farmers for the entire year.

The PURE Intel+ and PURE Intel PCA databases include application information stemming from more than 2.9 million different applications of 3,390 unique brands by California farmers in 2022, and the data illustrates that many top brands can boast increased use in a year when overall application activity declined nearly 5% vs. the previous year. The following chart lists treated acreage for the 25 most widely used brands in terms of treated acreage in 2022, and our data shows an increase from 2021 for 11 of these brands (highlighted in green).

Roundup PowerMAX® was the most widely applied product in 2022 both in terms of the number of applications (50,549) and treated acreage (1.7 million). This marks the fifth consecutive year for Roundup PowerMAX atop this chart. Thirteen different suppliers have at least one brand on this list, led by CPS with its four brands (Activator 90, LI 700, MSO Concentrate with Leci-Tech and Liberate.)

Bob West is the Direct of Meister Media’s data business. For more information about this data or for more details about Meister’s PURE Intel+ and PURE Intel+ PCA (patent pending) products, contact him at 440-602-9129 or [email protected].

PURE Intel is a trademark of Meister Media Worldwide. PURE Intel+ PCA is patent pending.

About PURE Intel

Meister Media’s PURE Intel platform offers subscribers comprehensive insights into California’s specialty agriculture market by aggregating monthly crop protection product application data from approximately 20,000 California farms and providing that data through a user-friendly, web-based platform that enables subscribers to customize their data queries.

 

By Bob West

With most California farmers’ crop protection activities wrapped up for 2022, the December update to Meister Media’s PURE Intel+ platform paints a clear picture just how much California farmers’ crop protection activity changed during yet another drought-plagued year.

We estimate that California’s farmers will produce 88 to 92 million treated acres of restricted-use product applications in 2022, which represents a decrease of 2 to 4% from 2021 levels and a 13 to 15% drop from the high of 105 million treated acres in 2019.

The data certainly includes some bright spots for crop protection suppliers:

• Adjuvants comprise the largest product category in terms of treated acreage by far, and treated acreage of these key products will essentially finish the year flat to last year.
• Insect pressure clearly wasn’t as impacted by the lack of rain as insecticide treated acreage is only 1% below 2021 levels and miticide applications covered 3% more acres in 2022 than in the previous year.
• Treated acreage of insect growth regulators jumped roughly 12% in 2022 vs. 2021.
• Treated acreage for defoliants is up more than 30% this year, thanks largely to a sizeable increase in planted acreage of cotton in the Golden State.

The largest year-over-year declines occurred in the fungicide market, which stands to reason given the lack of rainfall. We estimate that final fungicide treated acres will be between 17 million and 17.5 million for 2022 compared to 18 million in 2021. PURE Intel+ tracks applications for 224 different crops, and treated acreage of fungicides only increased from 2021 to 2022 on a few: table grapes, pistachios, processing tomatoes, pears, tangerines and potatoes.

Unfortunately, these increases were generally minor and nowhere near large enough to offset the significant declines of fungicide applications on key crops such as almonds (down 900,000 treated acres vs. 2021), rice (down 120,000 treated acres), raisin grapes (down 80,000 treated acres), head lettuce (down 60,000 treated acres) and walnuts (down 50,000 treated acres).

PURE Intel+ reporting also tracks applications of conventional vs. organic vs. biological products, and it’s interesting to note that farmers appear to be turning to biological and organic fungicides with increasing frequency (see chart). Treated acreage of organic fungicides (defined as those carrying an OMRI designation on their label), has actually increased more than 10% over the past five years while the overall fungicide market has decreased more than 20% during the same timeframe. And the percentage of fungicide treated acreage comprised of biological products has increased from 36% in 2018 to 38% in 2022.

Bob West is the Direct of Meister Media’s data business. For more information about this data or for more details about Meister’s PURE Intel+ and PURE Intel+ PCA (patent pending) products, contact him at 440-602-9129 or [email protected].

PURE Intel is a trademark of Meister Media Worldwide. PURE Intel+ PCA is patent pending.

About PURE Intel

Meister Media’s PURE Intel platform offers subscribers comprehensive insights into California’s specialty agriculture market by aggregating monthly crop protection product application data from approximately 20,000 California farms and providing that data through a user-friendly, web-based platform that enables subscribers to customize their data queries.

By Bob West

Meister Media Worldwide has released its latest pesticide use reporting (PUR) data through its PURE Intel+ and PURE Intel™ PCA platforms, and the initial indications are that August 2022 application activity will trail August 2021 by 10%. These numbers for August fall largely in line with the trend thus far in 2022 as the monthly totals this year (see chart below) have represented a decrease from 2021 in every month other than January. The year-over-year decrease is certainly not an across-the-board drop, however. California’s farmers have increased applications to many crop groups this year, particularly cotton, small fruits/berries, cole crops, and fruiting vegetables.

Monthly Treated Acres of RUP Applications by California Farmers

However, application activity remains down vs. last year across the entire state due primarily to reduced applications in grains/cereals, tree nuts, and stone fruit. The decreased application activity in 2022 is even greater when compared to the average treated acreage for the past five years. In that comparison, treated acreage from all applications is down nearly 13% in 2022 vs. the average of the past five years and is down in seven of the top 10 crop groups.

Not surprisingly given the lack of moisture throughout California in recent years, fungicides are the product group showing the greatest year-over-year reduction in treated acres through August. To be specific, our PURE Intel data indicates that fungicide treated acreage is down approximately 800,000 treated acres through the first eight months of 2022 vs. the same timeframe in 2021, and that drop is nearly matched by herbicides as well.

California farmers apply nearly 90% of their total annual treated acres in the first eight months of a year, so it’s unlikely that we’ll see any sort of meaningful improvement in these numbers during the remaining months.

Bob West is the Direct of Meister Media’s data business. For more information about this data or for more details about their PURE Intel+ and PURE Intel+ PCA (patent pending) products, contact him at 440-602-9129 or [email protected].

PURE Intel is a trademark of Meister Media Worldwide. PURE Intel+ PCA is patent pending.

By Bob West

Farmers face challenges throughout California, but Fresno County is the one county where these challenges have created that greatest year-over-year change in pesticide treated acres. The chart below illustrates the treated acres in Fresno County for the period of January – July each year, according to Meister Media’s PURE Intel™ platform, which tracks pesticide application activity by farmers throughout California. 2022 marks the third consecutive year in which treated acreage has dropped for the first seven months of the year.

Treated Acres in Fresno County for January – July

Tree nut crops account for nearly half of all treated acres in Fresno County over the past five years, and most of those acres are dedicated to almonds so this three-year decline obviously results largely from reductions in almond treatments, as illustrated below. (Note that pistachio treated acreage during the January – July timeframe has increased since 2018 as this crop becomes more popular while decreases can be seen with the other four of the top five crops in Fresno County during this period.)

Treated Acres by Crop in Fresno County (January – July)

The widespread use of adjuvants on California farms means those products are feeling the most pronounced impact from the reduction in treated acres, but year-over-year declines can be seen in all of the key product categories.

Treated Acres by Product Type in Fresno County (January – July)

Despite recent challenges, Fresno County obviously remains a critical part of California’s agricultural industry, and it represents a critical area for manufacturers and retailers selling the key crop protection products to those farmers. Data such as this collected from PURE Intel helps identify the trends emerging within the market.

Bob West is the Direct of Meister Media’s data business. For more information about this data or for more details about their PURE Intel+ and PURE Intel+ PCA (patent pending) products, contact him at 440-602-9129 or [email protected].

PURE Intel is a trademark of Meister Media Worldwide. PURE Intel+ PCA is patent pending.

By Bob West

The up-and-down nature of California farmers’ challenges created particularly tough conditions in the early part of this summer after an up-and-down Spring, according to the latest data from Meister Media’s PURE Intel™ platform.

PURE Intel+ and PURE Intel+ PCA (patent pending) provide subscribers with tremendous insight into the California agriculture activity by aggregating farmers’ monthly pesticide use reports from all 58 counties and providing subscribers with the tools to analyze that data through a range of customizable filters.

The July data update provides the first look at numbers for the first half of 2022 vs. the previous years, and the data indicates a reduction in the number of growers applying restricted-use products (RUPs) this year, fewer total applications being made, and fewer total treated acres.

The number of growers reporting RUP applications in the first half of the year has steadily declined over the past five years (although the drop is much less significant when you look at data for an entire calendar year.

American Fruit Grower Editor Dave Eddy said the declining number of farms can be largely attributed to drought. “Smaller and medium-sized growers have been disappearing for years around the country because of economies of scale, but it’s been greatly accelerated in California by the drought,” says Eddy. “Water will flow to the growers who can most efficiently irrigate the most profitable crops, so smaller farms, especially those with less-than-optimal crops like canning tomatoes, are selling to their larger neighbors, who often farm crops like almonds. In other words, though this trend has been going on for a number of years, the drought has sent it into hyperdrive, and there’s every reason to believe it will continue, or more likely, accelerate, until the drought ends.”

Despite the drop in the number of growers reporting RUP applications, the total number of sites being treated across the state remains comparable to 2018 levels, which speaks to Eddy’s point about consolidation – many farm operations are simply expanding their operation and controlling more sites than ever.

Of greater concern to suppliers selling crop protection products to California’s farmers is the decline in the number of applications reported through the first half of the year. Farmers report making roughly 6% fewer applications in the first half of 2022 vs. the first half of 2021 after an 8% reduction from 2020 to 2021.

Increasing use of biopesticides, which are often not classified as RUPs and exempt from reporting, and reduced disease pressure during drier summers can account for some of this decline. But the big picture is obviously that farms have reduced pesticide applications in recent years as water issues, labor challenges, softening market conditions and other obstacles have reduced production.

The reduced application activity can be found throughout the state. Total treated acreage looks to be down through the first half of the year in six of the state’s top 10 ag counties.

County	Treated Acreage Jan. – June 2022 vs. 2021
Kings	21%
Kern	15%
Monterey	9%
Imperial	4%
Tulare	-2%
Madera	-5%
Fresno	-11%
Merced	-12%
Stanislaus	-16%
San Joaquin	-24%

PURE Intel enables users to view applications by the crop treated, and it’s not a surprise that year-over-year declines can be seen across most crops. Again, declines for January – June can be found in seven out of the top 10 crop groups.

Crop Group	Treated Acreage Jan. – June 2022 vs. 2021
Grains/Cereals	20%
Cotton	16%
Stone Fruit	3%
Citrus	-1%
Grapes	-3%
Forage/Fodder	-5%
Leafy Vegetables	-6%
Tree Nuts	-10%
Small Fruit/Berries	-11%
Fruiting Vegetables	-28%

California farmers applied more than than 2,850 different brands of control products to the state’s farms in the first six months of 2022, and PURE Intel+ shows us just how much of every brand is applied. Treated acreage looks to be down for all of the key categories of RUPS thus far in 2022, although insecticides, miticides and plant growth regulators have fared better than other product types thus far.

Product Type	Projected Treated Acres (Jan. – June) (in thousands)	Change from Jan. – June 2021
Adjuvants	13,400	-4%
Fungicides	11,761	-8%
Herbicides	10,050	-9%
Insecticides	8,520	-1%
Insecticides-Miticide	3,261	-11%
Plant growth regulators	510	-2%
Insect growth regulators	505	21%
Miticides	443	2%
Special products	323	98%
Defoliants	155	-4%

The PURE Intel data can be used to identify application activity and volume by specific brand, which provides insights such as which products are being used most often across the state. Here’s a summary of the five most widely applied brands (ranked by treated acreage) applied in the first half of 2022 for each of the key product categories.

Adjuvants	Fungicides	Herbicides	Insecticides	Insecticide-Miticides
Activator 90	Microthiol Disperss	Roundup Powermax	Intrepid 2F	Movento
Dyne-Amic	Wilbur-Ellis Dusting Sulfur	Prowl H2O	Warrior II with Zeon Technology	Agri-Mek SC
LI 700	Merivon	Treevix Powered by Kixor	Asana XL	AbbA Ultra
Vintre	Fontelis	Matrix SG	Radiant SC	Minecto Pro
PHT Latron B-1956	Manzate Pro-Stick	Alion	IAP Summer 415 Spray Oil	PHT 415 Supreme Spray Oil

Bob West is the Direct of Meister Media’s data business. For more information about this data or for more details about their PURE Intel+ and PURE Intel+ PCA business, contact him at 440-602-9129 or [email protected].

PURE Intel is a trademark of Meister Media Worldwide. PURE Intel+ PCA is patent pending.

By Bob West

 

Everyone involved in agriculture in California knows how challenging 2021 was for farmers and suppliers alike. Our first look at the PURE Intel+ data measuring pesticide applications to agricultural crops in California illustrates the degree to which everybody was challenged throughout the state. Final application data still needs to be collected, but, based on historical trends and the strong reporting to date, we project the following:

• California’s farmers made roughly 315,000 fewer applications of restricted-use pesticides (RUPs) in 2021 than they did in 2020;
• Approximately 750 fewer California farmers reported making any RUP applications in 2021 than did so in 2020, which equates to a 4% decrease;
• California farmers will ultimately report roughly 92 million treated acres of RUP applications in 2021 – a 10% drop from 2020 and 13% lower than treated acres reported in 2020.

Many factors challenged California farmers in 2020 from a lack of available water to softer almond prices to labor shortages to shipping delays. And nearly every part of the state’s agricultural industry felt the impact.

The chart below lists projected final treated acreage numbers for the 10 largest counties, and Monterey County is the only one of the 10 not showing a decrease from 2020. Furthermore, note that 2021 treated acreage numbers fall short of the average number of treated acres for the four previous years in eight of the 10 counties.

Not surprisingly, nearly every product category tracked in PURE Intel+ shows a year-over-year decline in treated acres with only miticides and special activity (mostly comprised of mating disrupters) showing growth vs. 2020.

Special products (ie., mating disrupters) and miticides were the only two product categories to show growth in treated acres from 2020 to 2021.The treated acreage data at the crop level tells the same story. The annual decline was most severe for cotton, whose treated acreage dropped considerably due to a dramatic decline in the number of planted acres of cotton over the past few years as water issues have become more pronounced. But the more significant drops could be found in the state’s top two crop categories: tree nuts and grapes. Farmers undoubtedly appreciated how little disease pressure they felt throughout last summer’s drought, but that silver lining doesn’t benefit industry suppliers.

PURE Intel+ data also includes application numbers for every active ingredient and brand applied in California. Monsanto’s Roundup Powermax was applied to more acres than any other brand yet again in 2021, and it wasn’t close as farmers in the Golden State applied Roundup Max to more than twice as many acres as they did any other brand. Intrepid and Microthiol Disperss held firm in second and third place, respectively, while Altacor climbed from sixth in 2020 to fourth in 2021.

PURE Intel+ is a product of Meister Media Worldwide, and it is a comprehensive database of every application of a restricted-use product made to all agricultural crops produced throughout California. PURE Intel+ is updated monthly to provide current and actionable market intelligence that will help drive your business forward. For more information about PURE Intel+ or to schedule a demo of the platform, contact Meister Media’s Bob West at 440-602-9129 or [email protected].