Overture 35 WP Insecticide is a new class of insecticide marketed by Valent Professional Products that is active against thrips and caterpillars. This new insecticide contains the active ingredient pyridalyl. This product has an unknown mode of action. Overture is a contact insecticide that is applied as a foliar spray.
Overture is only registered as a greenhouse product. Hopefully, Valent will be able to obtain a registration that will allow Overture to be used outdoors.
Control of thrips is often not seen for 7 to 14 days after treatment. With the recent concern regarding western flower thrips resistance to Conserve, Overture can be a valuable component of a rotation program. Overture should be considered most effective when used as a preventative treatment or as a rotation product. Overture will be an excellent product to use in rotation with Conserve, Pylon and other thrips insecticides.
I have conduced a number of trial evaluating Overture. The results varied slightly depending on the western flower thrips population I was evaluating. However, in all the trials, Overture resulted in a decrease in thrips population. When tested against a western flower thrips population that was resistant to Conserve, the Overture treatments resulted in thrips control after 14 days.
Overture has provided excellent control of chilli thrips. It’s also effective in controlling many lepidopterous larvae, including azalea caterpillar, cabbage looper, tobacco budworm and many more.
For more information on efficacy trials conducted with Overture and other insecticides against chilli thrips, gladiolus thrips, weeping fig thrips and western flower thrips check out a report recently published by the IR-4 Ornamental Horticulture Program. This report can be found at http://ir4.rutgers.edu/ornamental/summaryreports/thripsdatasummary2008.pdf
This report summarizes 26 experiments in which 38 different active ingredients were evaluated.
