Soybean Association to Study Dicamba Herbicide Complaints
September 5, 2017 Farmers across Minnesota and the Midwest have filed complaints of a new dicamba herbicide sprayed on neighbors’ fields that has spread onto their soybeans, causing damage to the plants, writes Tim Krohn on MankatoFreePress.com.
“There have been over 200 reports of damage that have come into the Department of Agriculture in nearly 50 counties. There is speculation that only 30 percent of damaged fields have been reported,” said Michael Petefish, president of the Mankato-based Minnesota Soybean Growers Association.
The growing concern over dicamba and other herbicides being developed to kill weeds that have become resistant to other weed killers led the association to form a dicamba task force. They hope to learn the reasons for the damage and to find the best ways to fight resistant weeds while protecting crops.
“It’s a tough problem. It’s hard to even determine how much damage is done,” Petefish said. That’s because the damaged beans often aren’t killed but their leaves cup and shrivel, reducing the harvest. Petefish said when damaged soybeans are harvested, it’s hard to know what they would have produced if they hadn’t been damaged.
Read more at MankatoFreePress.com.
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