By Bob West
California farmers have been very busy to start 2024, according to the latest data published by Meister Media’s PURE Intel™ platform. The initial report of data for the first two months of the year includes Pesticide Use Reporting (PUR) information made under 7,410 different permits, and they totaled more than 260,000 different applications for nearly 8.2 million treated acres.
These figures represent an increase of 6 percent in the number of applications made and 15 percent in the number of treated acres as much-improved weather compared to early 2023 provides better early-season field access. The 2024 treated acreage figure also exceeds the initial reports for 2021 and 2022, further illustrating the strong start to 2024.
The increase in 2024 has been largely due to increased disease control activity. Treated acreage of fungicides jumped from 1.1 million in the initial reporting for Jan.-Feb. 2023 to 1.7 million in the same timeframe for 2024, which is a 52% jump. The individual brands with the most growth in the first two months are BASF’s Merivon Xemium, Miravis Prime and Vangard WG from Syngenta, Corteva’s Fontelis and BASF’s Pristine.
Adjuvant use also jumped in early 2024 – from 2.2 million treated acres in the first two months of 2023 to nearly 2.6 million treated acres thus far in 2024 (a 19% year-over-year increase). The adjuvant brands showing the most growth were Vintre from Oro Agri, Liberate from CPS, Voyager from Innvictis, Dyne-Amic from Helena, and CPS’ Choice Trio.
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 products, contact him at 440-602-9129 or [email protected].
PURE Intel is a trademark of Meister Media Worldwide.
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.