Agricultural News
Dr. Todd Baughman Reviews Dicamba Related Issues and Corrective Action Taken, at OK Ag Expo
Tue, 07 Nov 2017 15:56:10 CST
Radio Oklahoma Ag Network Farm Director Ron Hays spoke Tuesday to Dr. Todd Baughman of Oklahoma State University about his presentation on the impact of dicamba drift related crop damage and other issues at the Oklahoma Ag Expo in Norman. You can hear their complete conversation, by clicking or tapping the LISTEN BAR below.
Baughman says the issue of dicamba drift has stirred a very emotional response from affected individuals nationwide. The damage was particularly concentrated in the boot heel region of Arkansas near the Missouri border, home to approximately two to three million acres of soybeans. Fortunately, though, Baughman says the impact in Oklahoma was rather limited, with what few cases there were being tank contamination or other issues.
"I think that's been a benefit at least for us initially going in," Baugman said, but noted new regulations being implemented by the Environmental Protection Agency to hopefully curb unintended consequences from dicamba's use. "There's going to be some new rules that came down from EPA that was in voluntary cooperation with the companies - looking at making the product 'restricted use.'"
He explained that only certified applicators would be able to purchase and apply the chemical. Additionally, rules prohibiting the use of dicamba at night are also to be imposed to keep it from being applied and affected by peak times of temperature inversion.
"Limiting some of those types of things will hopefully help to alleviate some of the problems," he said. "We hope as we grow with the technology, some of those will go away."
The key factor to stopping and correcting the situation at hand, is making sure that farmers collectively make an effort to be more vigilant and proactive in their approach to the chemical, which if used properly can be a valuable tool on the farm. A concerted effort like this will hopefully prevent a similar situation from happening in the future.
"Hopefully, we'll learn from those (rules) and improve on that," Baughman said. "It's a technology that's very much needed, but we need to use it right."
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