Fungicides: Correlation
Prices it moves with, and why
Fungicides protect crops such as grapes, potatoes, fruit and rice from disease. Many are metal-based, like copper oxychloride and mancozeb, others synthetic, like triazoles and strobilurins, so metal prices, Chinese supply and disease pressure set prices.
Proxy US PPI: agricultural and commercial pesticides and chemicals index (BLS base period =100) · monthly, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026There is no free public price for fungicides itself, so this tab uses the closest public series as a stand-in. Read the numbers as an indication, not as the price of this exact item.
What its price moves with
Selected linkFungicides and Copper
Monthly changes -0.04 little or none correlation 12-month changes -0.28 weak correlation Last 5 years -0.01 monthly changes Lead or lag +3 mo Copper tends to lead by 3 months (r 0.09) Price function, Jan 2006 to Sep 2026 Fungicides ≈ 34.9 × (Copper)0.15 R² 0.09 On this fit, a 10% higher copper price goes with a 1.4% higher fungicides price over the long run. Units: index (BLS base period =100) and $/mt. The fit is loose, so treat the function as a rough guide.Chart: Fungicides and Copper prices rebased to 100 at Jan 2006, log scale
Both prices rebased to 100 at Jan 2006, on a log scale so equal percentage moves look the same size.Chart: Fungicides price against Copper price, monthly, log scales, with fitted line
Each dot is one month; paler dots are older (2006), darker dots recent (2026); the ringed dot is the latest month. The dashed line is the fitted price function. Both axes are logarithmic.Copper oxychloride, copper hydroxide and Bordeaux mixture are mainstays in vineyards and organic farming. The US pesticides proxy shows little link, with monthly moves at -0.04 and yearly at -0.28, as copper fungicides are a small part of it.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsMancozeb, a widely used fungicide in India, contains zinc as well as manganese. Monthly moves correlate at 0.07 with the proxy, and at 0.27 over the last five years, a weak but positive link.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsManganese is the main metal in mancozeb and maneb. It has no public series here, and its price follows steelmaking far more than agriculture, so its cost effect on fungicides is modest.
Not enough overlapping price history to measure.Copper sulphate for Bordeaux mixture is made by dissolving copper in sulphuric acid, and sulphur itself is a fungicide. Monthly moves correlate at -0.02 but yearly at 0.64 with the acid index.
little or none co-movement month to month · 225 months Show chartsVineyards, including those in Maharashtra, are among the most intensive fungicide users because of mildew. The wineries proxy correlates at 0.05 for monthly moves and 0.13 yearly, as wine prices reflect brands, not spray costs.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsLate blight in potatoes requires repeated fungicide sprays, making potatoes a large market. Monthly moves correlate at 0.10 and yearly at 0.42, a modest link through farm input and food price cycles.
little or none co-movement month to month · 249 months Show chartsHow to read these numbers
Correlation of monthly changes (the number in the coloured pill) compares how much each price moved, month by month, since 2006 or the first month both series exist. It runs from −1 to +1: near +1 the two usually rise and fall in the same months, near 0 there is no link, and a negative number means they tend to move in opposite directions. Above 0.7 is strong, 0.4 to 0.7 moderate, 0.2 to 0.4 weak.
12-month changes compare year-on-year moves, which shows whether two prices share the same cycles even when the month-to-month noise differs.
Price function is a straight-line fit of the two prices on logarithmic scales: price ≈ k × (partner price)β. β is how much this price moves, in per cent, for a 1% move in the partner over the whole period, and R² is the share of the variation the fit explains. Two prices that both drift up with inflation can fit well without any real link, so read it together with the monthly correlation.
Lead or lag checks whether the monthly correlation is clearly higher when one price is shifted by 1 to 6 months.
Correlation is not cause. The reasons on each card explain the economic link; the numbers show how strongly it has shown up in prices. Proxy series are US producer price indexes or related prices and can blur the real link.
Data: World Bank Commodity Price Data (Pink Sheet), October 2026; US Bureau of Labor Statistics producer price indexes, IMF primary commodity prices and US EIA prices via FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, retrieved November 2026. Calculations by this site.