The success of Ball Australia’s well-established annual grower trials across the country is based on magnificent displays that showcase Ball’s unique ornamental varieties to leading industry growers and retail customers.
2023 was just the second year of Ball’s annual Queensland trials at the DPI’s Redlands Research Station in which they partnered with BASF to help the northern team achieve similarly impressive results.
“We especially wanted to work alongside a company like BASF as they are a world leader in the agricultural and ornamental chemicals arena,” explained Lindsay Jenkinson, the company’s Queensland Sales Manager. “We gave them the scope of our trial, that being to grow cut flowers in the field and over 200 different varieties of ornamental pot plants in a shade house alongside. We asked BASF to provide chemicals that would be suitable for our crops and have minimal impact on beneficial insects and bees.”
The BASF team supplied four innovative products to protect the crops against a range of key threats:
- Danisaraba®, the recent big advance in mite control;
- Freehand®, a dual mode of action herbicide especially developed for use in nurseries and turf that has over 60 weeds on the label;
- Lexicon®, a ground-breaking fungicide that provides plant health benefits as well as excellent disease control;
- Versys®, a novel insecticide registered to control aphids, whiteflies and mealybugs in ornamentals.
Lindsay was very happy with the performance of all the products and particularly noted the savings in cost and time that Freehand Herbicide helped them achieve. “Having personally grown and weeded the cut flowers and beds for the past two years, I can highly recommend the Freehand”, she said. “Last year I weeded weekly – often having to use labour-hire staff to help me with the weed control. This year, having used Freehand as a pre-emergent weed control, I could manage it myself in hardly any time, not having to employ help with this aspect of the trial at all. The DPI staff also commented on the reduction in weeds compared to last year’s trial.”
The second Queensland trials event offered a compelling display of new varieties; the plants were looking so impressive that some of the visitors – all industry professionals themselves – asked about Lindsay’s ‘recipe for success’ and decided to follow it. “We’d used Versys, Danisaraba and Lexicon as instructed and had phenomenal results,” she says, “with customers at the trials selecting them for their own nurseries as a result.”
The BASF team is always happy to work with industry partners and growers of ornamentals and nursery stock to control weed, insect pests and diseases while promoting the health of both plants and beneficial insects. We thank Lindsay for this generous summary of our involvement in the Queensland trials and invite others in the industry to call on us for advice and support when needed.
“Ornamental horticulture is an important aspect of horticulture and we were thrilled to have been able to showcase such incredibly successful products in our trials, making our trials a success as a result. Thank you BASF.”
