Q&A: Introducing Kalmor fungicide/bactericide

The following article is sponsored by OHP:

Kalmor, a new fungicide/bactericide from OHP, is part of the company’s Biosolutions line. According to Dr. Carlos Bográn, OHP technical manager, Kalmor can be used in almost any greenhouse or nursery growing environment.

“That's the cool thing about our label,” Bográn says. “It includes basically anything you grow in a greenhouse or nursery situation. So, whether those crops are ornamentals or vegetables, it's almost beside the point. This is a greenhouse-and nursery-specific product. It covers all the ornamentals in which you can use copper. And then all the vegetables that you can grow indoors.”

Kalmor, a copper hydroxide-based product, is OMRI Listed and labeled for control of alternaria, bacterial leaf spot, botrytis, cercospora leaf spot, downy mildews, fire blights, needlecasts, pseudomonas leaf spots, xanthomonas leaf spot and other diseases. Research shows that Kalmor is effective on certain resistant strains, particularly bacteria. This makes it a useful tool in an integrated pest management (IPM) program, according to Bográn.

Greenhouse Management: What is Kalmor, and what is its active ingredient?

Dr. Carlos Bográn: Kalmor is our fungicide/bactericide and features a formulation that is new by the manufacturer that hadn't been available with that label in our industry. That active ingredient is copper hydroxide. There are other products with the same active ingredient in the market. But the nice thing about our formulation is that the particle size is very small. And that provides more potential solubility. Because if you think about just the physics of it, if you have more particles, there's more surface area around which the water can interact with the particle.

GM: Is there an advantage to using a copper hydroxide-based product? And what about Kalmor is unique to the market?

CB: Depending on the chemistry of that copper, those particles may or may not interact with the surface of the leaf, or with the water, or with the chemical. And so just inherently based on the active ingredient, copper hydroxide has less risk of phytotoxicity due to it’s relatively low water solubility

I think one of the benefits is the very easy-to-use formulation for the grower relative to other copper formulations because it's easy to measure, easy to pour, dissolves quickly, stays in solution. What makes it easy to pour is the uniformity and the size of the particles. We call this type of formulation a dry flowable. The flowable part is because it’s like gravel. Imagine if you have perfectly round gravel pieces that will flow better than if they have all kinds of shapes. The uniformity and the particle size all help that flow better, if you will. If you think about a puff powder … You have a big bottle of powder and you try to pour it; the particles are small, but they stick with each other and then a block of it dislodges, like an iceberg.. You almost have to dig it with a spoon, and then that gets suspended in the air and creates dust. It's just harder to handle.

GM: Why are smaller copper particles a benefit for the environment?

CB: The particle size and formulation of Kalmor is such that you don't need as much copper for it to be available in solution and for the plant to be protected. It turns out that if you have an insoluble product, or a product that has bigger particles and they're less soluble, you need to put more copper into the formulation, because only some of it will become available to protect the plant. You're putting [in] more copper than you actually need just because the bioavailability is not very much in some of the alternative products. That means that since you are putting less copper, you have automatically less risk of phytotoxicity because when it becomes toxic, [it’s] because of the concentration of the copper ions. It's too high in a certain condition. Phytotoxicity has been one of the things that limits the use of copper in general in ornamental plants, either because actual phytotoxicity or because visible residue on the plant influences the consumer preference.

GM: Can Kalmor be used with any other products?

CB: Triathlon BA contains a high concentration of metabolites that are responsible for quick contact activity against the bacteria and the fungi that it touches, that it targets. But it doesn't have any residual activity on the foliage. In contrast, copper is a preventative. It forms a preventative barrier that it should last a lot longer. So, one has quick broad-spectrum activity and the other one has residual activity. For something like a bacterial pathogen that is in the system, that may be better than either one by themselves in some situations. Together, they can be an effective tank mix.

For more information on Kalmor, click here.