A new broad spectrum fungicide has been proven to kill different fungi and bacteria in ornamentals.
Fungicides have been used for more than 400 years from as simple as a brine solution, which was used for cereal seed treatment, to the introduction of very complex organic chemical compounds in the earlier half of the 20th century. There are different classes of fungicides that are classified according to their chemical structure. One of them is copper-based fungicides or copper fungicides. It has been used to protect crops after the ‘accidental’ discovery of the Bordeaux mixture by Pierre-Marie-Alexis Millardet in the late 1800s.
Disease control with the use of a copper based fungicide is done by disrupting the functions of the cellular proteins of fungi and bacteria. This is because when cupric ions are released in the presence of moisture, it destroys the secondary and tertiary structures (denaturation) of these proteins upon contact. Once these proteins are denatured, its functions are lost.