Does anyone have any experience with or thoughts on a fungicide with the active ingredient bacillus amyloliquefaciens strain D747. I believe it’s commonly sold under the name double nickel 55, but I just found it as Southern Ag Garden Friendly Fungicide. It’s listed for a wide variety of problems, including fireblight. I’m contemplating rotating this and serenade and copper after suffering with some severe blight issues last year. I’m interested in low pact spraying, and this product would seem to fit that profile because of the way it works.
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Pretty much the only thing with fairly reliable efficacy against FB is antibiotics. Copper is listed as a protectent against FB, but it is known to be inadequate, so you can’t base too much on the label in that way.
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Double Nickel 55 is a combination fungicide/bactericide. The Bacillus Amyloliquefaciens is probably the bactericide portion. I have no experience actually using this product, just took microbiology in college.
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Check out Double Nickel PLUS Cueva.
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@blueberrythrill Thanks for the tip. I’ve just spent an hour chasing information on the internet. The conclusion seems to be that this combination is better than nothing. How much better I haven’t been able to figure out.
Both UConn and UMass include this combination in their 2016 IPM recommendations for fireblight. http://fruit.umext.umass.edu/tfruit/2015-16netfmg/2016TreeFruitManagementGuideUpdates.pdf. Fruit Growers News says this combination is the “best option” for organic growers (which I’m not, completely)
http://fruitgrowersnews.com/news/penn-state-fire-blight-alert-this-week/
Penn State says “This may not stop a fire blight epidemic, but it appears it has the potential to slow the spread of the disease,” http://extension.psu.edu/plants/tree-fruit/news/2014/disease-update-the-fire-blight-saga
Those links are from 2014-2016. None of them have anything that compares the effectiveness to antibiotics.
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I have seen several effectiveness charts for FB control and antibiotics like Streptomycin always tops the charts, generally by a large amount.
The Double Nickel and Cueva combination was tested a few years ago in Winchester, VA. The addition of Double Nickel reduced the russet from the copper, but the combination was not as effective as strep against FB. The suggestion was that the Double Nickel and Cueva cocktail could be alternated with strep in order to reduce the number of strep applications and perhaps reduce the chance of developing FB resistant bacteria. Apogee is very effective against the shoot blight but its expensive and has to be applied before the shoot blight develops.
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Perhaps you already know this. B.Amyloliquefaciens 747 is my goto BCA which I always keep on hand for my vegetable grow. I’ve found it’s quite effective in controlling various diseases with 2-4 applications except I had to use Actinovate this year for Verticillium in eggplants (one application is all it took). I recommend alternating with other BCA’s and/or Regalia so that there is no resistance build up. No reason to buy $$$ Double Nickel when Southen AG or Monterey product is cheap and same as Double Nickel.
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