A Tillage Business Manager with Glanbia, Charlie Purcell, has won the top project award in the UCD diploma course in Integrated Pest Management.
The award, which is sponsored by Dow AgroSciences, is an all-expenses paid trip to the intensive ‘Disease Management in Wheat’ course.
The course is run by the National Institute of Agricultural Botany (NIAB) in Cambridge in the UK in January 2017.
He joined the Glanbia graduate programme in 2014 and after completing the two-year programme, he was appointed Manager of Glanbia’s tillage business in the south east in September 2026.
Under the EU Pesticides Directive, all new pesticide advisers are required to complete the diploma course in Integrated Pest Management.
The course is co-ordinated by Dr Tom McCabe of the UCD School of Agriculture and Food Science.
Meanwhile, the launch of two new products into the Irish market by Dow AgroSciences’ will be of major benefit to growers in controlling weeds and insects in cereal crops, according to the company’s National Business Manager, William Corrigan.
Corrigan was speaking at the presentation of the award, where he outlined the benefits of the company’s new herbicide and insecticide.
“Arylex Active, a new herbicide based on innovative chemistry, will have a wide spectrum of weed control in both winter and spring cereals. It is the first such product to be launched on the market in over two decades.
The new insecticide Isoclast Active, also based on new chemistry, will offer control of sap sucking insects, such as aphids, in a wide range of crops.
“In view of increasing concern about aphid resistance, its launch is highly significant,” he said.
These new products combined with a brand new fungicide Inatreq Active for the control of septoria and other diseases, which will hit the market in the coming years, will make a major contribution to the sustainability of tillage crops, he added.