With two recent announcements the EPA has approved labels for over-the-top dicamba applications (XtendiMax, Engenia and Tavium herbicides) in 2023 in Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota.
EPA said there was little risk to most people from exposure to dicamba, though it identified six additional instances in which workers handling the herbicide should wear a respirator along with the required outfit.
In 2021, the agency reported it received 3,500 dicamba-related incident reports, including approximately 711 incidents in Minnesota and 528 incidents in Iowa.
ASA president Bill Gordon said: Label conditions must include protections to ensure safe, responsible use of products like dicamba, but they also can't be so burdensome they won’t work for the farmers who need them.
EPA announced it approved three dicamba formulations for over-the-top use for five years, 2021 through 2025. The formulations included are BASF’s Engenia, Syngenta’s Tavium and Bayer’s XtendiMax.
“The level of infestation in any given field ranges from a small pocket where a mother plant went to seed in 2019, to an area covering several acres in a field.”
On Friday, judges in California with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against a petition to halt all use of Engenia, FeXapan and XtendiMax dicamba herbicides.
In a recent Farm Journal Pulse, with 539 responses, 36% of farmers said they were done with dicamba applications for the season. With 64% of respondents saying they still have acres to spray.
“Petitioners’ motion to ‘Enforce this Court’s Vacatur and to Hold EPA in Contempt,’ is a thinly-veiled attempt to revive arguments the court already rejected or declined to reach. It should be denied."
The EPA faces a deadline today when it comes to Dicamba. The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wants to know by today why the agency is allowing continued over-the-top use of Dicamba on soybeans and cotton.
Plaintiffs in the case that lead to the products’ vacatur say EPA is wrong and that the courts should grant an emergency motion to enforce the vacatur and hold EPA in contempt for their actions.
ARA President and CEO Daren Coppock and NCFC CEO Chuck Conner sent a letter to EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler asking for clarification and emphasizing that days matter as the application window is quickly closing.
Today EPA issued a final cancellation order for the label of three dicamba products subject to a 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling: Engenia (BASF), FeXapan (Corteva) and XtendiMax (Bayer).
A tell-tale sign of resistance is just one or two specific weed species emerging after herbicide application—application failure means everyone can grow, resistance means just the resistant weeds thrive.
“For soybean farmers who just planted or are finishing up planting of the dicamba-tolerant genetics, they were really caught off guard.” says Dave Spears, senior vice president and chief marketing officer at MKC.
Herbicide applicators have the weight of dicamba’s future weighing heavily on their shoulders this year. EPA’s conditional registration lasts through Dec. 20, 2020.
In the first case involving dicamba, a jury sided with the plaintiff and found Bayer and BASF responsible for $15 million in actual damages and $250 million in punitive damages.
After three weeks of argument, a seven person jury in Cape Girardeau, Mo., is deliberating whether Monsanto and BASF are responsible for damages on a peach orchard in southeast Missouri.
In 2018 IDA issued 233 warning letters and 14 notices of fines. In 2019, there have been 62 warning letters and 98 notices of fines. Fines are pretty evenly split between commercial and private applicators.
The trial is at the U.S. District Court Eastern District of Missouri Southeastern Division and centers on whether damage to a peach farm is from dicamba drift or natural causes including a spreading soil fungus.
The major dicamba products labeled for over-the-top use in soybeans and cotton will be restricted to an earlier cutoff date of June 20, 2020, in Indiana.
This week the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved Syngenta’s Tavium Plus VaporGrip Technology herbicide. This is a group 4, dicamba, formulation premixed with S-metolachlor to provide residual control.
In the most recent Farm Journal Pulse, farmers talked about dicamba—if they plan to use it, and how. Results show that 44% of farmers plan to apply dicamba or have it applied on their farms.
The Arkansas Agriculture Department’s State Plant Board voted to approve regulatory changes for dicamba herbicide application on dicamba-tolerant crops in the state.
Sterling Clifton is a CCA in northeastern Arkansas. Hear why he says dicamba is still top of mind headed into 2019, and what his New Year's resolution is for his business, Clifton Agronomics, Inc.
In 2019, those who buy and apply dicamba must be a fully certified and licensed commercial applicator (no longer just “under the supervision” of a certified applicator).
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced it will renew the label for over-the-top application of dicamba in soybeans and cotton through December 2020.
On Monday, the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) announced an additional restriction for farmers using dicamba in the state, which would be on top of the EPA label released at the end of October.
Wednesday the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced it would renew the label for over-the-top use of dicamba in soybeans and cotton through 2020.
“This year the applicators emphasized again that off target movement exists under optimum conditions with extremely careful application and impacts sensitive soybeans."