Dicamba

After a disastrous dicamba year in 2016, which saw hundreds of thousands of acres of U.S. farmland affected by off-target movement, 2017 was touted as a year of labels and precision application. However, early reports

In the most recent Farm Journal Pulse, farmers talked about dicamba—if they plan to use it, and how. Results show that 44% of farmers plan to apply dicamba or have it applied on their farms.

In an affidavit, Monsanto describes actions by Arkansas Plant Board member Terry Fuller as biased and says it calls into question the fairness of the entire public record in relation to a proposed in-season herbicide ban.

Drift, volatility and other factors could be contributing to the problem

As harvest nears completion farmers, retail and state Extension agents have gotten a better idea of how many acres of soybeans were allegedly damaged by dicamba.

Illegal spraying of a volatile weedkiller may be the cause of unprecedented damage to crops earlier this year, especially for soybean farmers in Arkansas.

The Indiana Pesticide Review Board voted Aug. 30 to place all agricultural-use dicamba products under restricted use for the state. This means only certified applicators will be able to apply the product, if the rule passes a couple more steps.

Arkansas farmers might not have 2018 access to dicamba products in-season for over-the-top use in corn and soybeans if the ban passes a few more steps. The Arkansas State Plant Board recently approved of regulatory changes concerning the product’s potential use in soybeans and cotton.

More than 2,200 complaints with dicamba named as the suspect have been filed in the U.S. since the beginning of the 2017 season. In perspective, if various Extension experts’ estimate of 3.1 million U.S. acres of damage is accurate, that represents 3.5% of planted soybean acres, as of press time.

As complaints about dicamba damage continue to trickle in, farmers, applicators, manufacturing companies and state employees are trying to get a handle on what’s going on.