Lower manufacturing costs, lower transport and storage costs, reduced packaging waste, improved handling and associated end-user price advantages are all contributing to the trend, according to Andrew Fulford from Kenso New Zealand.

"The technology behind formulating high percentage agrichemicals has improved significantly over recent years. There is now

an increasing number of products available on the market and within this trend there is a growing interest in water dispersible

granule (WDG) technology."

Fulford says WDGs are now developed to the point where efficacy is as good as, if not better, than more traditional liquid based formulations.

"The WDGs have the added advantage of eliminating the heavier liquid based carriers therefore allowing significantly easier handling of the product. That in turn leads to big reductions in packaged weights, and transport and handling advantages which

are particularly welcomed by the end user."

Kenso has in invested heavily in a large WDG development program, Fulford says.
Kenso now supplies a range of high active ingredient products with the Ken-Up Dry 680 SG glyphosate leading the way.

"This has earned a significant following in Australia particularly in the broad acre cropping industry, with dry formulation being a

major selling point. We are already seeing the brand attract a lot of interest in NZ, too, particularly with volume glyphosate users."

Kenso continues to develop, trial and bring to market a range of high active ingredient liquid and WDG formulations with extensive

trials underway in Australia on new single blend and combination herbicide and fungicide formulations.

These will also be released to the NZ market in due course, Fulford says.

More immediately, the company is preparing to release a paraquat/diquat herbicide (Speedy 250) and a tebuconazole fungicide

(Rebuke 430) into the NZ market.

"The paraquat/diquat market in NZ has limited brand options and we are anticipating strong interest as result.

"We look forward to bringing these products to NZ’s primary industries and are excited by their potential," Fulford says.