Discovery of a New Fungicide Candidate through Lead Optimization of Pyrimidinamine Derivatives and Its Activity against Cucumber Downy Mildew

Downy mildew is one of the most highly destructive of the diseases that cause damage to fruits and vegetables. Because of the continual development of resistance, it is important to discover new fungicides with different modes of action from existing fungicides for the control of downy mildew. This study is a continuation of our previous work on the novel pyrimidinamine lead compound, 9, and includes field trials for the identification of the optimal candidate. A new compound, 1c, was obtained, which gave a lower EC 50 value (0.10 mg/L) against downy mildew than lead compound 9 (0.19 mg/L) and the commercial fungicides diflumetorim, dimethomorph, and cyazofamid (1.01–23.06 mg/L). Compound 1c displayed similar broad-spectrum fungicidal activity to compound 9 but better field efficacy than compound 9, cyazofamid, and flumorph. The present work indicates that pyrimidinamine compound 1c is a candidate for further development as a commercial fungicide for the control of downy mildew.