'We're in a situation where it's innovate or die - you either make the innovation or you won't be here,' said Michael Tait, a technical manager at Syngenta.

Tait has outlined the changes the UK industry is facing in light of the changing world, and has explained some of Syngenta's connected developments in view of crop protection.

'Manufacturers have problems because vegetables are so small and specialised and there is such demand for perfect produce. There's a lot of work to do to get approval, so vegetables are seen as rather low returns for rather high costs. Relatively few crop protection products solely go into the vegetable industry, but the crop protection industry is becoming more and more innovative in the last few years.' Tait offered a few examples of Syngenta's recent crop protection schemes. 'We are working on brassica crops at the moment. With Amistar and Plover we can achieve the perfect produce that the market wants.

'Onions are not an easy crop to spray as they have waxy leaves and leaves that grow high up in the air. So our application expert Tom Robinson has been looking at this. What we saw was the total deposition was greater when you used a lower water volume. With a high water volume you got too much run off from it and it ended up on the ground. We are now doing similar work with carrots, potatoes and brassicas. And we hope to continue this work into the next few seasons.'

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