Board advises May dicamba cutoff
The state Plant Board on Thursday recommended a May 21 cutoff date on in-crop use of the herbicide dicamba.
Farmers who plant dicamba-tolerant crops want to use it throughout the growing season of their soybeans and cotton. Farmers with crops, including fruits and vegetables, susceptible to the herbicide want the herbicide banned or severely restricted.
Jason Norsworthy, a weed scientist with the University of Arkansas System’s Agriculture Division, asked the board to consider what, if anything, has changed since the board voted to ban the herbicide’s use this year from April 16 through Oct. 31.
He said the results of his science, and that of colleagues throughout the South and Midwest, continue to prove dicamba’s ability to spread days after application to susceptible crops, especially as temperatures rise above 80 degrees and more acres are sprayed in a short period of time.
Norsworthy noted that the federal Environmental Protection Agency, even in its Oct. 31 decision to allow dicamba’s in-crop use for another two years, asked dicamba manufacturers to conduct more research on their products’ off-target movement, on pH levels of soil and other issues affecting the chemical’s performance.
Buffers between dicambatolerant crops and susceptible crops, and other restrictions, do no good if they can’t be enforced, Norsworthy said during his 90-minute presentation.
Dicamba can be effective against pigweed, a scourge to soybean farmers that is now resistant to other herbicides, but it’s not the only tool availVIENNA
able, Norsworthy said.
Norsworthy said Plant Board records show it received 15 dicamba complaints from 2000-2014. There were 15 in 2015, 31 in 2016, 1,014 in 2017, and 200 this year, he said.
The board ultimately voted 10-5 to prohibit dicamba’s incrop use from May 21 through Oct. 31, with exemptions for use around the home and in forestry. Dicamba’s use on pastureland would be allowed during that time only if there’s a quarter-mile buffer to crops and vegetation susceptible to the herbicide.
The board’s recommendation also says dicamba can be applied between April 16 and May 20 only if there is a 1-mile buffer, in all directions, from any university or federal research station, organic crops and specialty crops. Anyone who sprays the herbicide also must be certified, through courses set up by the University of Arkansas extension service and by dicamba manufacturers.
The next move for the board is to get Gov. Asa Hutchinson’s approval to refer the proposed new regulation to a 30-day public-comment period and then to a public hearing. Any new regulations also will have to be approved by legislators and the governor.
Some 80 people attended the board’s four-hour meeting Thursday, with some watching the proceedings by a video feed set up in a room adjacent to the boardroom.
The board’s 10-5 vote preceded an 11-4 vote to deny a petition seeking a ban on dicamba.
Shawn Peebles, a Woodruff County farmer who raises 1,500 acres of organic sweet potatoes, edamame soybeans and other vegetables, said a ban was the only way to protect farmers like him and townspeople concerned about the health of their backyard gardens and ornamental shrubs and trees.
“There are other options to dicamba, but you’re not accepting that,” Peebles told the board. “You’re not giving me any options.”
Peebles said he could lose his certified-organic license if his crops are damaged by
dicamba or other herbicides. “The only answer is to ban the product,” he said. “You couldn’t enforce April 15 [cutoff date]. How are you going to enforce this?”
Arkansas this year had the nation’s only ban on using dicamba on soybeans and cotton after plants have emerged, but the Plant Board still received about 200 complaints of possible damage. Many of those complaints were filed in June and July, leading officials and Plant Board investigators to believe farmers violated the April 15 cutoff date.
With an April 15 cutoff date, the Plant Board took a more aggressive approach this summer to possible violations, including borrowing an airplane from the state Forestry Commission for one day to fly over eastern Arkansas fields. Investigators also drove throughout the region, looking at crops, turnrows and ditches for signs that dicamba was being used.
The use of the chemical last summer in Arkansas led to a midseason emergency ban, effective July 11, as complaints rose into the hundreds and ultimately topped 1,000.