FMC Corporation has won approval from the UK's Chemicals Regulation Division (CRD), part of the Health and Safety Executive, for Koban, a new residual herbicide based on the active ingredient pethoxamid. The approval, reported on 1 October 2026, covers oilseed rape in Great Britain; use in cereals is expected to follow.
Pethoxamid belongs to HRAC Group 15, the same mode-of-action group as flufenacet and metazachlor, two actives that have come under growing regulatory and resistance pressure in European arable farming. FMC positions Koban as a soil-applied residual partner that controls grassweeds and broadleaf weeds, to be used in a tank mix or sequence with other residual chemistry rather than as a stand-alone knockdown.
It is the third new herbicide active FMC has brought to the British market in recent years. The company launched Fundatis, a mix of bixlozone and beflubutamid, in 2025, and reports promising early results from using pethoxamid alongside Fundatis in cereal weed programmes. Geoffrey Bastard, FMC's marketing lead for the UK and Ireland, said the launch reflects the company's commitment to giving farmers new tools against difficult grassweed populations.
Pethoxamid is not a new molecule worldwide. It has a regulatory history in Canada, has been reviewed by the US Environmental Protection Agency, and has a peer-reviewed risk assessment from the European Food Safety Authority in the EU. What is new is its arrival in Great Britain, where, since leaving the EU, the CRD carries out its own national assessment of active substances and products instead of following EU decisions automatically.
For arable growers, a new residual option arrives as older actives in the same group face tighter rules and weed resistance.
Photo: Oast House Archive / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 2.0)
Source: Global Agriculture
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