October, 1999

EPA expected to make decisions soon on Captan, Carzol

by Lee Dean

Organophosphates aren’t the only crop protection materials soon to under re-registration by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The agency is now setting its sights on eight non-OPs, including two commonly used fruit materials – the fungicide Captan and the carbamate miticide/insecticide Carzol (formetanate hydrocloride).

The agency expects to make reregistration decisions this fall on these materials. A monthly publication of the USDA’s Office of Pest Management Policy warns that the schedule for the chemicals becomes more compressed towards Sept. 30, which is the end of the federal fiscal year.

The non-OPs are subject to a scheduling procedure that pre-dates the Food Quality Protection Act (FQPA). This means that the procedures that were part of the review of the OPs – review, public comment and meetings of the Tolerance Reassessment Advisory Committee (TRAC) - will not necessarily be a part of this process.

However, the new provisions called for under the FQPA for the risk assessment are being incorporated into the process for these materials. These provisions include items such as aggregate risk assessments, where all environmental detection of the chemical are taken into consideration.

These uses are then poured into a theoretical “risk cup.” In many cases, agricultural uses are factored in last. If the cup is already filled with risks from other uses, the ag uses are the overflow. Registrants must then either make up the difference somewhere else by changing uses or providing better data (mitigation) or run the risk of losing the agricultural uses.

EPA officials say they are making an effort to gain input from registrants, grower groups and other interested parties, said Michael Goodis, the agency’s review manager for Carzol, and Susan Jennings, re-registration team leader for Captan. But if the agency intends to make its decision before the end of September, time is very short to gain additional new information.

Jennings explained that the work on the Captain re-registration has been ongoing for a numbers of years, and added that there is never a deadline for giving information on a chemical to the agency. She would not divulge the nature of the decision, saying it was not yet completely finalized.

“But we feel comfortable with our decision at this point. There are no areas I can think of where additional information could possibly change our decision,” she said.
Captan is a widely used fruit fungicide used to control summer diseases. Its registrants are the Israeli firm Makhteshim Agan and the Japanese company Tomen Agro, which acquired the label from Zeneca. Micro Flo and Drexel formulate it.

For eastern apple growers, Captan works against primary and secondary scab, black rot, botrytis blossom end rot, sooty blotch, flyspeck, powdery mildew and others. It is used for brown rot in peaches, nectarines, apricots, cherries, plums and fresh prunes.
As a small fruit fungicide, Captan is used by grape growers against phomopsis cane and leaf spot, downy mildew, bunch rot and black rot. Blueberry growers use it against botrytis gray mold and mummy berry. Gray mold and leaf spot are the target diseases for strawberry use.

Captan has other horticultural uses as a peach preplant root dip, postharvest fruit application and on a number of ornamental crops. Some non-food uses include cosmetics, pharmaceuticals, oil-based paints and textiles.

For Carzol, the EPA’s Goodis said the agency has been in conversation with the registrant, AgrEvo, grower groups and other stakeholders.

“We want to try and gain a better understanding of Carzol for the various commodities and the impact that certain mitigation measures may have on growers,” said Goodis.

Neither EPA official would go into detail on what form the final re-registration document would take. Goodis said some mitigation measures are likely to be needed for Carzol. The mitigation would most likely be accomplished by providing additional data to the agency, which in the case of Carzol has added a 3X additional safety factor to the material because it has insufficient information to conclude that it meets FQPA standards.

Carzol is not used as widely as Captan, but is still considered important, particularly as a resistance management tool against mites. It is labeled for use on apples, pears, peaches, nectarines, plums, prunes, citrus and alfalfa. Apple target pests are tentiform leafminer, white apple leafhopper, thrips, European red mite, two-spotted spider mite and campylomma. On pears, Carzol is used against both kinds of mites and pear rust mite.

The target pests for peaches and nectarines are European red mite, McDaniel mite and two-spotted mite. Carzol is labeled for thrips on nectarines and on lygus bugs, stink bugs and plum curculio on peaches. The product is labeled against all the aforementioned mites for plums and prunes.

The Fruit Growers News