By MICHELE F. MIHALJEVICH

Indiana Correspondent

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — The Office of Indiana State Chemist (OISC) has investigated nearly all of the 129 dicamba-related drift complaints received last year and found violations in 94 percent of the cases, according to an official with the agency.

The office received a record 257 drift complaints in 2017, said David Scott, OISC pesticide administrator. Of the 129 related to dicamba, OISC had completed investigations on 123 by the last week of March, he said.

Nationwide, more than 2,700 investigations into dicamba-related injury were reported in 2017, according to Kevin Bradley, a professor in the Division of Plant Sciences at the University of Missouri. An estimated 3.6 million acres of soybeans were injured by off-site movement of dicamba, he said.

The cases in which the OISC has been able to document a violation usually involved the label, noted Scott, also secretary for the Indiana Pesticide Review Board. Violations included failure to leave a proper buffer, spraying with wind blowing toward sensitive crops or when wind speeds were greater than 15 mph or less than 3 mph, failure to perform a site survey and improper boom height.

“Any of the things that could have been prevented are frustrating,” he stated. “The labels (for 2017) were more complicated than they used to be. We told applicators and farmers they would be tough labels to follow.”

For 2018, the OISC requires anyone who purchases or applies dicamba for farm use in the state to attend a training session. “We have picked the label apart,” Scott explained. “All the requirements are a part of the training. They’re going to have all this information going into the season.”

Of the 123 completed investigations, 23 percent involved commercial applicators and 64 percent certified private applicators or farmers. The rest were non-certified applicators, he said.

Almost every situation where a violation was documented resulted in a civil penalty, Scott pointed out. The penalty may range from a warning letter to a monetary fine depending on the severity of the violation. In Indiana, a private applicator or farmer faces a $100 fine. For commercial applicators, fines are $250 for the first instance, $500 for the second and $1,000 for three or more.

In 73 percent of the cases, OISC investigators were unable to determine how or why the dicamba moved off target, he said. In 24 percent, movement was caused by particle drift and, in 3 percent, by failure to clean the tank.

The agency doesn’t yet have a way to document volatility, Scott noted.

“It’s a little bit disconcerting going into the new year and we still don’t have a full understanding of how and why things moved last year,” said Steve Smith, chair of the Save Our Crops Coalition. “How do we prevent it from happening in 2018 if we don’t know how it’s happening?”

Scott said 93 percent of the drift damage occurred in non-dicamba-tolerant soybeans. There were a few cases of injury to gardens, ornamentals or trees and melons.

Smith, also director of agriculture with Elwood, Ind.-based Red Gold, said none of the company’s tomato fields were injured by drift last year. He urged producers to report any damage to crops in 2018 to the appropriate state agency.

Last month, he talked with U.S. EPA officials about the lack of residue tolerance for food crops. Without an exemption or tolerance, trace residues of dicamba could render crops unmarketable, even if the crops are safe, Smith has noted. He was unable to make progress on residue tolerance, adding the EPA’s legal department appears to be resistant to developing it.

This growing season will be the first since Indiana began classifying dicamba as a Restricted Use Pesticide (RUP). The designation applies to any dicamba-containing pesticide with a concentration greater or equal to 6.5 percent.

The RUP requires those purchasing or using dicamba be certified applicators and those who distribute be registered pesticide dealers. The designation also requires sellers and users to keep sales and use records for two years.