. . . . Back in April, [Monsanto] bet big on dicamba, announcing a $975 million expansion of its production facility. . . The chemical is the reason the company launched its new . . . Xtend soybean and cotton seeds, genetically engineered to withstand both dicamba and . . . glyphosate. . . .
. . . . The company elected to release . . . Xtend soybean and cotton seeds this spring, even though the EPA has not yet signed off on . . . a new dicamba formulation. That was a momentous decision, because the dicamba products currently on the market . . . have a well-documented tendency to vaporize. . . and drift . . . killing other crops. Monsanto’s new dicamba, tweaked with what the company calls “VaporGrip” technology, is supposedly much less volatile.
The trouble is that farmers. . . jumped at the new seeds, and evidently began dousing crops with old dicamba formulations as a way to knock out those glyphosate-tolerant weeds. Oops.
For its part, Monsanto says it expects the EPA to approve the new. . . dicamba formulation in. . . 2017. . . . If the VaporGrip formulation does indeed control volatization. . . the drift incidents . . .will soon just be a painful memory. . . If not, they portend yet more trouble ahead for the PR-challenged ag giant.
The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion and analysis. Read full, original post: Monsanto Just Made a Massive Mistake
