The Missouri state Agriculture Department has received more than 100 complaints this spring and summer of crop damage from wind-spread “drift” of the herbicide dicamba from neighboring fields, says DTN, saying some growers are using the weedkiller on soybeans although it is not approved. “The hotbed for the off-target and off-label problems appears to be southeast Missouri, northeast Arkansas and northwest Tennessee,” said DTN.
Dicamba-tolerant soybean seed, trumpeted as a way to control weeds that are resistant to widely used glyphosate, is available for planting but the EPA has yet to approve use of the herbicide as part of growing the crop. The herbicide is approved for killing weeds prior to planting, however. DTN said some growers “knowingly used” dicamba “in off-label applications that would have been in violation of U.S. state and federal law.”
Arkansas and Missouri experts say most of the damage in their states occurred in soybeans. Arkansas farmer Reed Storey told DTN that seed companies should have kept dicamba-resistant soybean off the market until the EPA approved use of a version of the herbicide that is less susceptible to drift. The EU has yet to approve import of dicamba-resistant soybeans so some elevators have announced they will not handle the unapproved strains.