Dicamba Drift: Impact on Yields Still Uncertain

Martha Blum reported recently at AgriNews Online that, “Spraying pesticides has been a challenge for many applicators during this growing season.”

The article noted that, “Going into the 2017 growing season, [Russ Higgins, University of Illinois Extension commercial agricultural educator] said, a group of extension educators looked at the possible problems that could occur with the three new dicamba products that were approved for application on soybeans.”

Ms. Blum explained that: “Although the extension educators were concerned about the possible drift from the dicamba products, Higgins said, ‘we were pretty confident with the buffers that are required on the labels that we were going to be in pretty good shape.’

“Another concern was temperature inversions.

“‘Normally the warmest air is at the ground level, and it gets cooler as you go higher,’ Higgins said. ‘Occasionally we get a warm air mass sitting above a cold air mass.’

The goal is for the vapor to go straight up and disperse.

“‘But if we have that mass of air trapped under the warm air above it, the vapors can move horizontally and carry particles with it,’ Higgins noted.

“He received his first call about a dicamba issue on June 20.”

The Agri-News article added that, “Towards the end of July, the dicamba issue got personal for the U of I.

“‘One of our variety testing plots got hit by dicamba damage,’ Higgins reported. ‘Although this is not a good thing, it does give us an opportunity because we have the same varieties planted at two other locations in northern Illinois.’

“The researchers will compare across a number of varieties how much impact there is on yield, if any, by the dicamba damage.”

This entry was posted in Agriculture Law. Bookmark the permalink. Both comments and trackbacks are currently closed.