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Farmer concerned about a post-dicamba world

A north-central Iowa farmer says losing dicamba as a post-emergent herbicide would be a serious setback in the fight against resistant weeds.

Lake Mills corn and soybean grower Ben Pederson tells Brownfield waterhemp, giant ragweed, and lambsquarters are getting more difficult to control in growing soybeans.

“With Roundup Ready kind of run it’s course and resistance set in, as nature always does, I think we need something. I know there’s 2,4-D coming on, I’m hearing mixed reports on how (those trait-tolerant soybeans) will yield. We need some alternative to glyphosate over the top on soybeans.”

A recent court ruling vacated the registrations of three dicamba herbicides, leaving the future of Bayer’s XtendiMax, BASF’s Engenia, and Corteva’s FeXapan in question.

Pederson suggests the lawsuit is misguided.

“Somebody brought litigation against those chemistries, and that somebody obviously either doesn’t know or doesn’t care that that same chemistry is used on corn routinely. So it just gets into some of the ridiculousness that goes on these days.”

EPA has clarified that farmers and applicators with existing stocks of dicamba can apply the herbicide until July 31^st.

Pederson calls the notion of having to return or swap out products because of the initial court decision “an attack on common sense.”