…. Palmer Amaranth, Tall Waterhemp, and Giant Ragweed …. they’re among the worst invaders in a farmer’s soybean fields—prolific weeds that …. depress our yields, and resist many forms of herbicide.
The good news is that now we have a tool to better control them. It comes in the form of a soybean that resists dicamba, a traditional crop-protection product.
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As I drive around Iowa, I can tell which soybean fields take advantage of this product. They look clean and healthy. The ones that don’t use dicamba, by contrast, are showing major weed escapes.
Unfortunately, dicamba has become controversial …. dicamba can drift away from targeted fields full of weeds and settle onto other fields, damaging legitimate crops. As you can imagine, this gets complicated if one farmer’s dicamba floats onto another farmer’s property.
The ultimate solution is simple: Read the instructions and follow the label …. Farmers who study the label and follow its rules will use dicamba well. Those who ignore the label will run the risk of causing a needless problem.
Related on the SLP
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Because of this, a number of people are calling for the EPA to deny dicamba’s re-registration for 2019.
That would be a big mistake. This technology [allows] farmers to grow more food on less land. It keeps consumer prices low and allows us to conserve our wild spaces.
Read full, original article: Opinion: Making the Case for Dicamba
