Articles
PGRS – PRESENT SITUATION AND OUTLOOK
Roughly 40% of the PGR market is made up by ethephon, chlormequat chloride and mepiquat chloride.
In recent years, many companies have drastically reduced their activities in the PGR area.
The factors that have been of major relevance in this development are: a) Finding, developing and marketing a new PGR is more difficult and involves a higher financial input than in the case of other types of pesticides, b) the market is fairly saturated with competitively priced products, and c) intensified legislation for the registration of new, and the re-registration of established, products has become a severe constraint due to its absorbance of large working capacities.
As a consequence, a new PGR can be successfully introduced only if its application leads to quantifiable advantages for the user, if it is specific in its action and environmentally safe and if its market volume is sufficiently large.
The situation is particularly difficult for PGRs in fruit production.
Fruit trees are more complicated to work with and often the market size for a given application is relatively small.
Additionally, public opinion may be especially sensitive in this area.
For these reasons, most new PGRs will only become available for fruit production if this is an additional indication.
In spite of all these obstacles, however, there is sufficient evidence to support the statement that PGRs, as in other crops, will continue to be an integral part of fruit production in many areas.
New compounds currently under development may well become relevant in the near future.