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Dicamba talk in the wind at 64th Farm Progress Show
By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent
 
DECATUR, Ill. — Wind-carried dicamba drift incidents have been wreaking havoc on non-Xtend or Enlist soybeans across much of the Southeast and Midwest this year. On the first day of the 64th Farm Progress Show in Decatur last week, talk of dicamba-related damage took place from gate to gate.
 
As of August 15, 214 formal complaints of dicamba-related crop damage had been acknowledged by the Illinois Department of Agriculture.

A total of 2,242 complaints had been registered across the U.S. Soy and Cotton belts, with the most received in Arkansas (876) and Missouri (257).

Illinois Farm Bureau (IFB) President Rich Guebert Jr. was among the Illinois farmers attending the show who reported they had suffered soybean damage due to dicamba-related issues this year.

“The current status is ‘recovery,’” he said in a question-and-answer session in the Hospitality Tent on August 29.

“There have been a lot of instances where we see a number of fields that have been impacted by it, whether it was by someone else or was self-inflicted. I have one of those fields that was self-inflicted.”

Guebert explained even though he carefully followed all label directions and guidelines, he forgot to disassemble and clean his sprayer jets before spraying a non-Xtend soybean field using the same sprayer.

“(The plants) are now recovering. They really look ugly, but I just checked them over the weekend and they are blooming like crazy and setting pods. A little shorter, but they will be fine,” the IFB leader said.

Guebert added the dicamba scare of 2017 is “giving everyone out in the country heartburn” and nervousness. “It’s the fear of the unknown that’s raising all the red flags.”

Also at the show was Ron Moore, president of the American Soybean Assoc. (ASA) and a farmer from Roseville, Ill.
“Our position has always been that farmers should follow the label directions,” said Moore, who was touring the sprawling show grounds with ASA State Policy and Communications Coordinator Jessica Wharton, stopping for chats with showgoers and media along the way.

“This is most important because dicamba has only a two-year (EPA) registration.

We want to make sure we continue to have access to this technology,” he said.

“I raised dicamba-tolerant Xtend soybeans on my farm this year and have had great control of problem weeds in my area.

But there are other areas that have had issues, so we want to make sure what those issues are, and what exactly happened this year versus previous years.

“Is it climatic change? Is it something that needs to be addressed on the label? Was it inadvertent mixing? We don’t know the answers, but ASA is working with the United Soybean Board on some research projects to find out exactly what happened.”

The answer to why in-season dicamba applications are wreaking such havoc on non-tolerant soybeans and other crops this year will likely involve a combination of contributing factors rather than a single source, Moore predicts.

“We just want to be able to give the EPA documentation that acknowledges the issue, and shows that we found causes and are addressing them,” he said. “We’re not eager to place blame anywhere, including with the companies that make dicamba. We are grateful to have access to this technology.”

Moore and the ASA are hoping to learn more about the role that earlier, more volatile mixes of dicamba – which are no longer approved for use – may have played in the problem. Farmers who used leftover, banned dicamba products from past years were widely blamed for many of the reported dicamba damage incidents in Arkansas, Missouri and elsewhere. 
 
“We can’t yet say to what extent older versions of dicamba played in the problem, but our message to Monsanto and BASF is to not price the new products so much more expensively than the older versions of dicamba, forcing farmers in these tough economic times to use cheaper versions,” Moore said.

“However, in my area, the new versions were priced more competitively, removing any economic advantage provided by using the older versions.”

After his Q&A session, Guebert told Farm World that ameliorating the dicamba problem in Illinois and elsewhere will require “us all to work together” to reduce off-target applications of dicamba resulting in crop injury.

The Farm Progress Show is held biennially in Decatur, with Boone, Iowa, hosting the show in alternating years. It is the largest outdoor farm machinery show in the United States. The show will return to Decatur’s Richland Community College campus in 2019. 
9/6/2017