Bordeaux mixture
Caldo bordelés
- Date
- 1885 · confidence high
- Place
- Bordeaux, Gironde, France
- Credited to
- Pierre-Marie-Alexis Millardet, with Ernest David and Ulysse Gayon
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What it is
Millardet noticed that vines sprayed with copper sulfate and lime along roadsides -to deter passers-by from stealing grapes, given the mixture's look and bitter taste- escaped downy mildew, and recommended it as the first fungicide used at commercial scale.
In France the discovery is credited to the "Millardet-David treatment"; the Wikidata candidate instead names Ulysse Gayon, the chemist who collaborated with Millardet in later trials. All three are cited here.
What it led to
- Control of grapevine downy mildew after the phylloxera crisis
- Widespread use against apple scab and powdery mildew
- Modern agricultural chemistry of contact fungicides