Various farmers groups have praised Amiran Zambia as a company that stocks some of the best genuine agro-chemicals, which guarantee to produce the best intended results. The farmers say Amiran does not compromise on quality and ensures that they provide the best products on the market.
And Company Regulatory Agronomist Cynthia Banda confirmed that Amiran provides some of the best products of all the three classes of pesticides, which are fungicides, insecticides and herbicides.
In an exclusive interview with the Zambian Business Times – ZBT, Banda said Amiran products are genuine and unlike some of the products on the market, not diluted, noting that products are graded. She noted that the company gives a warranty on some of the new sensitive products, which would still be under trial.
She added that Amiran runs trials on its various products such as pesticides in Zambia every year in order to ensure that they suit the climatic conditions in the country, therefore if the products work for the company, they will work for customers too, but if the opposite occurs, the company looks into factors that may have caused the failure until they get it right.
Banda said some of the best insecticides that the company stocks include crown, windstorm, blast super and cyromazin which focuses on pests and diseases such as tuta absoluta, aphids, white flies, diamondback moth, leaf minor, thrips and others diseases/pests. These fungicides are effective in crops like tomatoes, maize, cotton, wheat, vegetables, potatoes and fruit trees.
This Amiran crop and pest chart below shows the right products to cure specific diseases in respective crops. This is the level of detail and depth that the company goes to to ensure farmers and users get value for money.
Banda said the company also stocks herbicides such as spencer which is specific for maize and can be used for pre and post emergence that is before and after the emergence of a seed adding that spencer is a selective herbicide that can still be used before the plant germinates.
It works against all types of weeds as well as the stubborn nutsedges, hence it has since been dubbed to come with the bemba catch phrase “Posa Ulukasu”, translated into English as “throw your hoe away”. The nutsedges have seeds which regerminate if one uses a hole to get rid of them but spencer clears the seeds too and is specific for maize but can also be used for sweet corn and popcorn.
Amiran currently has a promotion that allows customer to get a free 10gram sachet of windstorm for every 1 liter bottle of spencer they buy. This promotion is valid till the 19th of November, 2021.
The Amiran Agronomist told ZBT that mofarno is another herbicide which is specific for soyabeans and can also work against annual grasses and broadleaf weeds. It is advised to use mofarno as a pre emergent but it can also be used as a post emergent while weeds are still small or at a height of 4cm.
She stated that dalot is another herbicide suitable for beans but works for carrots too. It is one of the fast-moving products because it has a low residue which is rare for herbicides, unlike other products that may stay in the soil for a year or two, dalot stays in the soil for 12 days. It goes into all horticultural crops except for tomatoes.
Banda also said the company’s knapsack sprayers are 16 litres and their durability is over 4 years. “The beauty of our knapsack sprayers is that they are not seasonal, it’s
not a seasonal sprayer that has to be discarded at the end of the season. If one part of the sprayer becomes faulty, you can find the spare parts easily”, she said.
She said the knapsack sprayers will be available at the end of the month noting that they are as good as the old knapsacks the company was handling but with better durability and will also be affordable.
