LAUSR

BACKGROUND Fluazinam is an effective fungicide in controlling Botrytis cinerea, but has short duration of efficacy. Increasing application dosage may cause phytotoxicity. To overcome this shortage, a controlled-release technology was studied by encapsulating fluazinam. Ethyl cellulose (EC) polymer microcapsules were loaded with fluazinam to formulate as a capsule suspension (CS). The efficacy for inhibition of B. cinerea and persistency of CS were examined by comparing with fluazinam technical concentrate (TC) and aqueous suspension concentrate (SC) of fluazinam using microscopic observation and high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) analysis. RESULTS Fluazinam CS formed capsules with median size of 3.17 μm in diameter and had 82.3% encapsulation efficiency. It had a stronger inhibitory activity against B. cinerea than fluazinam TC and SC measured 7 days after the treatments. The half-life of fluazinam CS on cucumber leaves was 3.4 days, longer than the 2.3 days of fluazinam SC. CONCLUSION Fluazinam CS formulation significantly improved the inhibition of B. cinerea and resulted in prolonged and sustained release. Moreover, microencapsulation increased the duration of the efficacy of fluazinam on target crops. This formulation could help to sustain pesticides and protect the environment. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.