In response to reports of crop damage around the U.S., the Trump Environmental Protection Agency is considering further limits on Monsanto’s and BASF’s new dicamba herbicides:
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) discussed a deadline for next year’s sprayings on a call with state officials last month that addressed steps the agency could take to prevent a repeat of the damage, four participants on the call told Reuters.
…A cut-off date for usage in spring or early summer could protect vulnerable plants by only allowing farmers to spray fields before soybeans emerge from the ground, according to weed and pesticide specialists.
…EPA officials on the last call made clear that it would be unacceptable to see the same extent of crop damage again next year, according to Andrew Thostenson, a pesticide specialist for North Dakota State University who participated in the call.
They said “there needed to be some significant changes for the use rules if we’re going to maintain it in 2018,” he said about dicamba usage.
…To address the crop damage, the EPA has also asked state officials about enhanced training for dicamba users; tighter restrictions on when and how the herbicides can be sprayed; and the possibility of reclassifying the products so the general public could not buy them, according to participants on the call.
“Everything is an option,” said Jason Norsworthy, a University of Arkansas professor who was on the call [Tom Polansek, “Exclusive: EPA Eyes Limits for Agricultural Chemical Linked to Crop Damage,” Reuters, 2017.09.05].
What, did Trump already forget Monsanto’s contribution to his inauguration? Is Donald mad at Monsanto because he can’t really take credit for keeping Monsanto jobs in the U.S.? Did an EPA folder fall into organic-eating Ivanka’s lap?
Whatever EPA does, I’m surprised to hear the Trump EPA considering any restriction on any corporate product.
The dicamba user I spoke with at the State Fair last week mentioned that the dicamba product he used came with the recommendation not to spray on beans after July 1.
Common sense is going to dictate that dicamba shouldn’t be used when its 90+ outside. Producers have had & used the product for decades without this much widespread damage. Most of the corn gets sprayed with a dicamba formulation, but that happens in May & June when the product isn’t as likely to volatilize. Now with soybeans being resistant you seen sprayers running a dicamba formulation up to August.
Crop damage can be compensated for, what concerns me is reckless use of this product that kills trees or other perennials that take decades to grow.
I share Greg’s deep concern for trees and other hard-to-replace perennials. Be careful with that spray!
Interestingly, this year, the hottest weather came in June and early July; by end of July and into August, we had fewer 90-degree days.
Did the increased reports of damage happen because the new soybeans made farmers think they could spray later in the season, or was there something in the new formulation of the dicamba products that made them more volatile?
Or do we get to tie the damage to global warming? ;-)
Sorry deplorable, very few acres of corn get sprayed with dicamba. and haven’t been for many years. I have more than my share of soybean fields with dicamba damage. Most of that damage came from fields that were sprayed in June by good operators. This dicamba mess is from a product failure for the most part.
As they say every year is different. It was the first year of widespread use of extend beans, I think the safeners were oversold on their performance (volatility reducers) just a little bit and with it being dry pre-plant herbicides didn’t activate or work. Soybeans didn’t canopy and then in late June-July when it started raining the escape weeds took off and everyone that had the technology used it.
Products like Status (dicamba) are widely used on corn and we haven’t seen the volatilization like we did this summer with soybeans. There were plenty of fields that had damage and you can see volunteer trees in the right of way dying or talk to neighbors that lost a garden or few trees.
You will see many more people plant extend soybeans next year just out of defense from their neighbors so there is the potential to be even more dicamba floating around in July. Then throw in the area coop that pays their applicators by the acre covered and so the incentive is to run more hours of the day instead of daytime hours when there isn’t an inversion.
Then there is the unknown factor, did some farmers or coops use generic dicamba (cheaper) which didn’t have the safeners and volatility reducing agents in it? Everyone is cost conscious and saving a few bucks over thousands of acres does add up.
There are applicators meetings required to buy herbicides, most of the time they are an open book test. I think this is an area where the training process can be strengthened. Such as knowing how to test for inversions, knowing the time of day some products need to be applied, using the right type of nozzles and which combos of chemicals can work together, etc.
Plus spraying extend soybeans at the recommended rate is using a pint of dicamba. Thats a lot, the dicamba formulations in all the corn chemicals isn’t near as potent. Other Greg, I’m not sure what you are smoking, dicamba is one of the most widely used chemicals out there. Read a label the salts are in quite a few formulations, notill guys use it heavily because it is the only thing that will kill kocia. You can’t kill kocia with roundup or 24-d even if you sat the jug on top of it.
I can see monsanto’s point, when roundup came out all we needed was 12-16oz to kill everything but by not going full strength we hastened the resistance in weeds. Now they are trying to get everyone who uses extend to use the full rate so we don’t end up with kocia resistant to both roundup and dicamba. That would be a killer.
Cory, it was used so late because the manufacturers of the new formulations, with added drift protection, guaranteed(I use the term loosely) their customers that this wouldn’t happen.
Fascinating! Keep the details coming!
Deplorable,I checked with a large chemical retailer that runs 8 costom app machines and they told me that dicamba was used on 10 percent or less on corn acres. Your area must have a lot of Kochia. I guess we are lucky as we don’t have much of it.
I heard from a very good source that there are samples of Kochia at SDSU from fields within a half hour of Aberdeen, that are borderline resistant to Dicamba.
Its the 5th most widely used chemical worldwide according to BASF. Discovered in 1958, first adopted with Banvel in the 60’s, then marketed under Marksman, Clarity, Distinct, Status and now Engenia.
The point is it continues to be used in a pre/post application throughout all these years, the only variable that changed was the calendar in which it was applied. I have my doubts that the volatility reducing agents work when its 90+ outside. Applicators may be doing everything correctly, but under high heat & dry conditions I think over the next few days the product is volatilizing and then moving when inversions take place.
Looking at Iowa State data: Going from .25lb/acre Dicamba to .7lb/acre increases %soybean injury from 18 to 52%. Increasing Temperature from 68 deg to 95 increases %soybean injury from 15 to 32%, small amounts of rainfall decrease injury. With no rainfall they have %soybean injury at 36%, vs a 1/4″ or more of rain decreasing the % injury to less than 3%.
So what does the data indicate? Hot, dry & large amounts of dicamba increases the propensity of the product to move. That doesn’t exactly work spraying it in late June/July.
So Deplorable when your neighbor that sprayed dicamba and cupped your beans and says don’t worry they will probably yield as much as they would have without the drift is full of it. I would have to agree with your data. So far no one will accept liability. The farmer that has damage should not have absorb the yield loss.
In the past we’ve also not sprayed Dicamba into the summer because it’s only labeled on corn up to 5th leaf. There’s never been reason to spray Dicamba in the heart of summer. We’ve used it as a burn down on wheat stubble as beans start to turn, but I’m starting to second guess that practice.
Best case scenario would be for insurance companies to pay, then sue Monsanto. Tough row to hoe though.