Nebraska soybean and dry edible bean growers could lose the use of a critically important herbicide under proposed EPA restrictions to protect endangered plants and animals.
That warning comes from Nebraska Farm Bureau environmental specialist Craig Head. Head says the EPA is proposing new rules for the use of fomesafen, the active ingredient in herbicide products Flexstar, Flexstar GT, Reflex and Prefix. He says the primary concern with EPA’s draft proposals on fomesafen are the large buffer areas that would be required between crops treated with the herbicide and areas designated as critical habitat for endangered species. He says that EPA established the buffers using spray drift modeling that tends to over-predict how far spray is deposited.
Farm Bureau is urging EPA to re-examine its buffer recommendation and to involve the state department of agriculture and farmers before making a final decision. Unless it revises the buffer proposal, Head says, EPA will unnecessarily restrict and complicate the use of fomesafen, in his words “making its use impractical at best.”
Head says farmers need to be able to choose among multiple chemical weed control products. This is especially important because of growing concern that certain weeds are developing resistance to the widely used chemical, glyphosate, used in Roundup herbicide.
According to Farm Bureau, 86 percent of soybean acres nationwide would face restrictions under the EPA proposal. Soybean growers in 60 Nebraska counties would be affected.
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