News

Missouri dicamba update with Director Chinn

The Missouri Department of Agriculture says as of today there were 42 alleged dicamba complaints filed – all but 10 of them in southeast Missouri. Missouri Ag Director Chris Chinn told Brownfield Ag News last week she expects to see fewer complaints this growing season compared with the previous two years, “Because we had over 2500 farmers and applicators go through the dicamba training this year and we issued 500 new commercial applicator licenses as well so we feel like we’ve prepared applicators and farmers to be able to do a better job this growing season.”

Chinn explains how investigations work, “When a complaint is received we assign it to an investigator and they go out and they talk to the complainant. Depending on how many alleged applicators are in that area, each additional applicator is an additional investigation of its own.”

She says samples and information are gathered over many man hours, “Sometimes it appears to be drift and then other times, you know, it might be something that was an error on the landowner themself. So, we ask a lot of questions. We put a lot of time in it to make sure we get it right so we’re not accusing people wrongly.”

The dicamba complaints encompass more than 31-hundred acres of soybeans, more than 14-hundred tomato plants and 500 acres of peaches. The rest are other fruit and vegetable crops and trees as well as greenhouses and personal gardens.

The department releases updated pesticide damage complaints each Tuesday. The cutoff date for dicamba application was June 10th for 10 Southeast Missouri counties. It is July 15th for the rest of the state.

AUDIO: Tom Steever interviews Director Chris Chinn, June 14, 2018 ~