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IFCA wants June 30th cutoff and other dicamba restrictions

The Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association wants the EPA to set a cut-off for dicamba application next year. Association president Jean Payne tells Brownfield Ag News their suggestion of June 30th is based on feedback from professional applicators, “That would still give us flexibility in replant. But, in reality, even when we have to replant soybeans, by June 30th your soybeans are up, in the post-emerge condition. And so we threw that date out for Illinois but recognize other states might have other cut-off dates.”

Payne says complaints of damage to non-tolerant soybeans in the two years that the new dicamba products have been used are all from farmers and well exceed total complaints of any damages in 2016, “So, to go from 125 total to over 500 this year and over 400 last year is a troubling trend for anybody in the pesticide industry. I don’t care who you are.”

The Illinois Fertilizer and Chemical Association also suggests growers provide applicators the type of soybean trait planted on all sides of any Xtend field that will be treated with dicamba, to not have dicamba applied if sensitive crops are adjacent to the field of application and to not apply dicamba beyond the V6 growth stage.

Payne says Illinois is a large soybean state and faces challenges with extremely windy conditions, especially in Central Illinois. She says they prefer federal, instead of state-level, dicamba label restrictions because the Illinois Department of Agriculture faces budget pressures and a backlog of dicamba complaint investigations already.

AUDIO: Interview with Jean Payne ~

 

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