The federal Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday approved the release of a herbicide badly needed this past growing season by thousands of cotton and soybean farmers.
Whether the new dicamba-based herbicide by Monsanto will be allowed in Arkansas without testing by the state's own weed scientists remains to be seen. The Arkansas Department of Agriculture's Plant Board has long been insistent that new products be available for study.
"We've looked at it from a weed-control perspective but not from an off-target one," said Jason Norsworthy, a weed scientist with the University of Arkansas System's Agriculture Division. "There's really not [an immediate] path forward for that herbicide in Arkansas at this point."
The off-target perspective concerns a herbicide's drift onto neighboring property.
Monsanto, the seed conglomerate based in St. Louis, has conducted field tests with farmers in five states but hasn't allowed third-party testing.
"No one anywhere -- independently, in or out of Arkansas -- has done any testing," Norsworthy said. "That's really something the state Plant Board is wanting us to do -- to take a look at it and make sure it's definitely an improved product."
A Monsanto spokesman said in a statement the company was "excited that the EPA has followed through on its commitment to approve this technology."
Dicamba has been on the market for decades as a relatively inexpensive weedkiller around the home and on the farm. Its use on cropland, however, has been restricted nationwide by the EPA because of its tendency to drift off target and damage neighboring row crops, fruit and vegetable farms, and ornamental trees.
Monsanto this spring began selling two new soybean versions: Xtend, which is dicamba tolerant; and Roundup Ready 2 Xtend, which is tolerant of both dicamba and glyphosate, an herbicide commonly known as Roundup.
However, Monsanto released the seed technology before the EPA approved the accompanying herbicide called Xtendimax VaporGrip, a dicamba formulation that Monsanto says is less susceptible to drift, and Roundup Xtend Vapor Grip, a pre-mix of glyphosate and dicamba.
Assured by Monsanto's marketers that the new beans also would bring higher yields, farmers bought and planted some 15 million Xtend soybean seeds this year.
Some farmers with the Xtend crops, when faced with an onslaught of pigweed this summer, sprayed dicamba anyway, allegedly damaging the crops of neighbors who didn't plant the dicamba-tolerant seeds. A dispute over dicamba damage was a factor in the slaying about two weeks ago of a farmer in northeast Arkansas. A similar dispute in western Kentucky had a role in a farmer's homicide there in early October.
The state Plant Board wrestled with the dicamba matter all summer and, after five meetings of its pesticide-herbicide committee, voted Sept. 30 to recommend several restrictions on certain herbicides, including the new Monsanto product.
The matter is in the middle of a 30-day public comment period, then goes to a public hearing at 1:30 p.m. Nov. 21. After that, the governor can accept or reject the Plant Board's recommendations and, if he wants, write his own regulations. The Legislature will vote on any changes when it's back in regular session in January.
Meanwhile, farmers in the state expect EPA approval soon of another dicamba-based herbicide, Engenia, made by BASF, that UA weed scientists have studied and approved, Norsworthy said. That will give farmers with Xtend beans an option if the new Monsanto product isn't registered for use in Arkansas.
Labels for either Engenia or the Xtend herbicide come with federal warnings on exactly how they should be applied.
Farmers have to read, and abide by, a product's labeling, Norsworthy said. "We can pass all the regulations and guidelines possible, but unless farmers follow those guidelines, we'll be back to where we are now," he said.
This summer's dicamba problems led to farmers filing about two dozen complaints with the Plant Board, including three complaints by Mike Wallace, 55, the Monette (Craighead County) farmer who was shot and killed Oct. 28. In Missouri, criminal investigators for the EPA served search warrants in early October on several farms in the Missouri boot heel, where farmers also reported damage caused by illegal spraying.
The EPA's restrictions on the new Monsanto product include a buffer zone and prohibition on it being sprayed by aircraft or when wind speed is more than 15 miles an hour.
Business on 11/10/2016