South Dakota’s Department of Agriculture very sensibly set June 30 as the last day farmers can apply drift-prone dicamba herbicide. Senator Justin Cronin (R-23/Gettysburg) is already trying to undo that sensible precaution for his farming relatives:
“We planted four days on our farm. That’s it,” Cronin said about the wet conditions this spring.
[South Dakota Agricultural Services Division director Taya] Runyan said it’s not a possibility to go beyond June 30.
Replied Cronin: “I think that’s very interesting. We’re going to have a lot of late crops planted this year in South Dakota.” He said it needs to be revisited “sooner rather than later.”
[Deputy director Tom] Gere said there are other pesticides that can be used on soybeans after June 30 [Bob Mercer, “S.D. Lawmakers Want Data on Pesticide Drift Complaints,” KELO-TV, updated 2019.05.26].
Senator Cronin needs to understand that the dicamba regulations don’t exist to provide farmers a minimum amount of time to apply this particular herbicide. The regulations exist to prevent the application of dicamba during July and August, when the weather conditions are more likely to support dicamba drift and damage to neighbors’ crops. Perhaps Senator Cronin wants to support a more complicated application regime, in which we fund the installation of weather monitors and Department of Agriculture inspectors to come out and certify that weather conditions are safe for dicamba at that moment and will not change within the volatility period after application… but I’ll bet the funding it would take to provide such reliable weather prediction in hundreds of localities statewide is beyond Senator Cronin’s budget plan. Absent such rigorous monitoring, extending dicamba application into July poses unacceptable risks.
I’m a farmer and have sprayed dicamba or had it sprayed on my crops where appropriate. I have also seen the damage it can do to non target crops. June 30 is a fair cutoff date.
I had extreme damage to my non dicamba beans by an irresponsible farmer applicator who sprayed on Sunday July 8th 2018 at 10 am with a 15 to 20 mph hour wind. The Dicamba drifted right into my Farm yard. The applicator was driving the spray rig at around 20 mph.. It made the beans crimple and lose color within hours. There is an expensive rescue treatment available that we used to salvage the field. It was a very bad experience. No Justin Cronin no extension into July please. Instead move it back to June 15th or ban it all together. Anybody who has had drift on their garden, trees, orchards. organic crops or even non dicamba crops will tell you it is a huge issue. The problems with inversion drift and applicator error is to great in South Dakota. Dicamba is not ready for prime time and should not have been released for use yet.
June 30 is an arbitrary day push down the maws of farmers by The Man. July 3 would be a better date, just to push back against this Man fellow, which is what Mr. Cronin is probably doing, I am sure.
June 30 is the very latest dicamba should be used in eastern South Dakota. We experienced spray drift damage on a 110 acre bean field from a neighbor spraying dicamba the first week of July last year, beans rolled up and were severely stunted. A good herbicide if properly used but not all farmers plant dicamba tolerant beans. We just absorbed the loss and learned to be careful where we plant non-tolerant beans. Please encourage all to follow legal recommendations.
Grudznik
Your comments are getting more erratic , full of nonsense and extremely bizzare as the days move forward. Every time you make a comment it appears you are putting your feet and mouth deeply into some type of animal feces. Please tell me you are not using high thc oil or some other type of illegal substance. You really need to clean up your act.
The U of MN is working on different crops for farmers, per the Strib:
“They’d like farmers to plant the land surrounding wellheads with novel hybrids developed at the University of Minnesota that reduce nitrate pollution while giving farmers a new cash crop. These ‘cash cover crops’ require less fertilizer than corn and soybeans, which now dominate Minnesota farm fields, and send down deep roots year-round, preventing soil erosion and sucking up the chemicals that are contaminating well water.
“The pilot program, which would include dozens of communities and 118,000 acres, would also give the U a chance to test out some of the breakthrough new crops its scientists have been developing. Among them are Kernza, a perennial wheat, and pennycress, an oil seed that was bred to survive Minnesota winters and grow side by side with soybeans in the early spring.
“Kernza and pennycress in particular have caused the most excitement. Pennycress is a winter annual oil seed that has a high enough oil content to be used for biofuels. It would lie dormant through the winter, its roots preventing erosion and keeping fertilizer in place while soaking up carbon and nitrates. It would grow quickly enough in the early spring that it could be harvested in the same fields that are growing soybeans, giving farmers an extra harvest each year.
“As a perennial wheat grass, Kernza doesn’t need to be replanted every year like most commercial grains. With roots in the ground year-round, it would deliver the same water-cleansing and carbon sequestration benefits as pennycress, scientists say.
“And as a grain, Kernza could be attractive to major food companies such as General Mills, which is helping fund some of the research and eyeing it for use in cereals.
“Iowa has started offering discounts on crop insurance premiums for farmers that help protect soil health. Maryland has a cost-sharing program that offers farmers up to $75 per acre to plant cover crops in an attempt to clean up Chesapeake Bay.
“Officials at [the state Board of Water and Soil Resources] have been studying the incentive program [in Minnesota], and believe it could work better than efforts to buy up easements and take farmers’ land out of production, especially where land values are high.”
https://short1.link/GTndWd
Of course none of that will matter if SD’s supreme ruler determines the state “is not ready for” other innovative and economically beneficial crops.
Grudz, you’ve got two real farmers addressing the merits of June 30 directly and another farmer saying you’re just off base. Perhaps you’d like to establish your farming cred before you opine further on this agricultural science issue?
As I said, I’m willing to entertain the possibility that there might be some days in July when the weather conditions might be just right in certain places to allow the use of dicamba without excessive risk of drift, just as it is possible that there are days in May when it may snow, or days in October when I can run without my shirt. On the flip side, there are hot, windy days in June when one cannot use dicamba without putting one’s neighbors at risk. Ideally, as I suggested in my conclusion, we’d have little weather monitors in every field (and probably at multiple locations in each field) giving precise temperature, wind, and humidity readings and forecasts to indicate whether application is safe… or maybe we’d even rig the applicators with weather sensors and GPS that would shut off spraying the moment conditions and the forecast entered the no-dicamba zone.
Absent such precise, reliable, and omnipresent monitoring, be glad we’re letting farmers spray dicamba until June 30.
I have a 100% effective solution to the problem. Guaranteed. Let’s just get rid of that dangerous crap. Outlaw it.
So Mr. Kloucek, as the most ineffective in the legislatures ever, are saying my blogging is like your legislating?
Mr. H, I am saying the science does not draw lines on the calendar, like June 30. I am saying if it is windy on June 29, or still as the bejezzus from June 15 until July 3, that is what matters. These fellows who are whining just don’t get that the calendar is an arbitrary line. And it’s well documented that Mr. Peterson is a good farmer, I have no doubt, while Mr. Klouceck is poor at most all things he does. He has documented most of it himself.
That they farm based on hard and fast dates, like June 30, leads me to fear they are of the ilk like most of my old farming friends, who plant based on the Almanac and birth their own children on the Almanac, and are darned near like those Zodiac fellows. That is not precision agriculture, #4Science. Precision agriculture would use up to the minute information, make decisions on the current weather, not the “Almanac”, and do what is best.
#4Science
But that’s not Frank.
Grudz Your definition of ineffective is flawed and you sir are a liar.
Over the years working together with many citizens we passed much meaningful legislation. Other legislation that should have passed and many many bills copied almost word for word by republican lawmakers { who would joke that we have to kill Kloucek’s bills and call them our own.} 1. Mandatory livestock price reporting by meatpackers became law in South Dakota first then passed in 8 other states and then the federal government. 2.Working with Charlie Flowers other legislators and Farm machinery Dealers we passed franchise protection legislation that is the envy of many states around us. 4, Bob Weber and I fought hard to keep prohibition of Foreign ownership of farmland on the books which still stands today
5 Bob Weber and myself had legislation on labeling of BST in milk. The Dairy industry is finally doing it.
6. Bob Weber myself and many many citizens fought for the Family Farm act which would have greatly helped avoid the mess we are in today.
7 Scholarships for National guardsmen and women at Vo techs
8 Honorary High School diplomas for WW II Korean and Vietanam war veterans who had not graduated when they went to the service.
9. Country of Origin labeling of meats in South Dakota working with many others.
1O State inspected meats allowed to be shipped across state borders
11. Legislation Roundup use linked to cancer worked with the living legend Pat Trask of Wasta
12 Elimination of Discrminatory RX drug pricing which would have eliminated gouging in the human RX drug pricing scheme. Passed the senate and Janklow lobbied personally to defeat it claiming the state got a 1 million dollar kick back from the Rx drug companies for the higher pricing mechanism and free samples at Drs offices. I called the drug pricing scheme “bribery”. Frank Mingo /Dennis Wollman, Sd Retailers and many others came so close….
13 Adult Farm management program was on the chopping block and we worked with people across the state to keep it going.
14 Elderly nutrition funding: With the help of Springfield Mayor Marv Schamber and thousands of South Dakota citizens we kept it intact.
We will stop here but abortion, pro gun legislation horse processing, saving SDSU extension service and many more issues were brought up because the go along to get along syndrome prevailed then and still prevails in Pierre. To much greed, instead of trying to help others, the selfish and self serving such as yourself grudz prevail. We will save the other legislation for a special column to depants the lies and terrible untrue Rhetoric you spew Grudz. There is no greater service to mankind than trying to help others which folks like Kloucek Weber Flowers Allen, Garry Moore, Nick Nemac and many others have tried to do. Grudz you have done the exact opposite and leave a very bad taste in my mouth.
Mr. Kloucek, please pay no attention to Grudz[]. He is a big liar, but otherwise, merely a small and petty man who considers causing anger, pain or upset among others “fun.”
Grudz[] is a very sad case. He hides his true identity, though most of us know it, out of shame I suppose. Please join me and several others in never reading his comments. Ignoring him is like ignoring Fox News, a wise choice. While he is left with his miserable self, we are quite happy. 😁
Grudz wins every time he draws us into discussing his or our merits instead of the merits of the issue. Senator Cronin is pushing to undo a sensible regulation that protects the farming interests of numerous South Dakotans against the corporate monoculture of Monsanto.
Grudz, I think one could dig agreement out of our statements. We both appreciate “precision agriculture.” At the end of my post, I say that precision agriculture would solve Senator Cronin’s problem. But Senator Cronin isn’t asking for precision agriculture. Quite the opposite: he’s trying to justify a chemical application decision that requires up-to-the-minute environmental data with blunt weather information that will be over a month old.
You are right on both counts, Mr. H. I was agreeing with you and Mr. Kloucek gave me his goat.
Cory, you mentioned a “more complicated application regime” that could be imposed with inspectors coming out and certifying that a dicamba application would be appropriate. However, we already have a viable alternative that makes a lot more sense. We have at least one app, RRXtend Spray, which evaluates weather conditions at field level and calculates a percentage chance that an inversion could occur. Responsible farmers use this app whenever they are considering an application of dicamba. We needn’t invoke the heavy hand of government when we have technology available to make responsible agronomic decisions.
Interesting, Darin! Does that app come from the herbicide manufacturer? Where does it get its data: from on-site monitors or from the nearest NWS station?
It’s very interesting to hear that that app provides not just the current readings but offers predictions on possible inversions coming up. How far out does one need to look for inversions to apply with acceptable certainty that you won’t get drift? Is there one fixed percentage chance of inversion that says spray/don’t spray, or are there other factors that result in a variable percentage threshold?
I certainly don’t mind avoiding the heavy hand of government. But tell me this: is that app good enough that we could do away entirely with a June 30 final dicamba-application limit? Or, even with this app and other monitoring/predicting tools, can we still justify saying no dicamba at all after X date?