The key dates to note are:
| 20 May 2019 | Notice of Authorisation published by CRD. Start of the Emergency Authorisation period of 120 days. Storage, promotion, sales, and transfer authorised. |
| 1 July 2019 | Application of Asulam can commence. |
| 16 September 2019 | First expiry date: for sale & distribution of stocks. Storage and use of stocks can continue. |
| 31 October 2019 | Final expiry date: for disposal, storage and use of stocks. It will be illegal to apply or store Asulam after this date. |
The application for the emergency authorisation was submitted in July this year, considered at the Expert Committee on Pesticides on 25 September and finally received ministerial consent on 31 October.
UPL, the company behind Asulam, has submitted an application for the re-registration of the active under EU regulations, but a decision is unlikely to be made until 2019. If the application is accepted, a further application to register the products containing Asulam would need to be made, which could take another 12 months to process.
Therefore, a further emergency authorisation will probably need to be sought to allow the use of Asulam in 2020.
Read the full update from the Bracken Control Group.