Biological activity of Ethaboxam: the first Korean fungicide

Ethaboxam is a new fungicidal active ingredient that inhibits growth of plant pathogens specifically belonging to Oomycetes with protective, curative, systemic and translaminar activity in plants. Modes of action studies revealed that ethaboxam simultaneously inhibits cytoskeleton formation and mitochondrial respiration of Phytophthora infestans at low concentrations. There have been no indications of resistance development when tested for baseline resistance monitoring to 261 isolates of P. infestans in Korea and Europe and 150 populations of Plasmopara viticola populations in Europe for 3 years since 2000. In a selective study with vine trees artificially inoculated with P. viticola repeatedly for 10 generations in greenhouse, there have been no changes in sensitivity to ethaboxam among four natural populations of P. viticola. Furthermore, ethamoxam has not shown any cross resistance with azoxystrobin, mefenoxam, dimethomorph and cymoxanil. Based on the study results from modes of action and resistance development, ethaboxam appears to be unlikely to develop resistance in field applications.