News

Specialty crop group has been proactive to prevent dicamba drift issues

The chairman of the Save Our Crops Coalition says so far off-target movement of dicamba has not been a major problem for specialty crop growers.

Steve Smith is director of agriculture for Indiana-based Red Gold tomatoes.  “We really haven’t seen a lot of damage in our tomato crop,” he says.  “However I have heard of issues in southwest Indiana with the melon crop.”

He tells Brownfield they’ve been fortunate.  “We hope that that is the result of a lot of good collaboration between neighbors working together and making sure that they haven’t exposed the specialty crops to dicamba,” he says.

There is no residue tolerance for dicamba on all food crops and Smith says it’s vitally important for producers to use the Field Watch/Drift Watch websites to alert applicators where sensitive crops are located.  “I know of several examples where there is dicamba applications going on near us,” he says.  “But it has not caused any injury because the people have actually followed the label and sprayed when the wind was blowing away from our crops.”

He says it is absolutely critical that applicators of dicamba follow application labels closely to avoid causing crop injury that could devastate a crop.

The Save Our Crops Coalition is a group of farm interests organized to help protect crops that are susceptible to spray drift from 2,4-D and dicamba.

AUDIO: Steve Smith, Red Gold and Save Our Crops Coalition