Department of Agriculture Chris
Chinn urges producers to heed label restrictions when applying herbicides
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – The Missouri Department of Agriculture
Plant Industries Division’s Pesticide Program reminds producers to explicitly
follow all directions for use, restrictions and special precautions found on
all pesticide labels.
One such pesticide, Dicamba, has been widely discussed over the
past few months. Dicamba is a useful herbicide chemistry, historically registered
by the U.S. EPA for use in burndown and preplant applications for the control
of many broadleaf weeds in the production of cotton and soybean crops.
The U.S. EPA approved for conditional registration the
following Dicamba herbicide products for use in-crop as post-emergent application
in Bollgard II XtendFlex cotton and Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybeans during the
2017 growing season:
· DuPont
FeXapan herbicide plus VaporGrip Technology, EPA Registration
Number 352-913;
· Engenia
Herbicide, EPA Registration Number 7969-345; and
· XTENDIMAX
with VaporGrip Technology, EPA Registration Number 524-617
Producers who desire to use these new Dicamba herbicide
products are encouraged to make sure they receive a copy of the complete supplemental
label for the product in use. Each of the new Dicamba herbicide products have
been approved with supplemental labeling that provides the mandatory directions
for use, restrictions and special precautions that must be followed. Pesticide users are required to have the
complete supplemental label in their possession when using the herbicide. Failure
to possess the supplemental label during use of the herbicide will be a
violation of federal and state law.
As always, the use of older U.S. EPA registered Dicamba herbicides
in-crop for post-emergent application in Bollgard II XtendFlex cotton and
Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybeans is a violation of federal and state law and
their unapproved and off label use may result in severe penalties.
Beginning this growing season, the Department of Agriculture
has the authority to issue a fine up to $10,000 per violation, or $25,000 per
violation for repeat violators, to any person found to have knowingly used any
herbicide for a crop for which the herbicide is not labeled for use, which
results in the herbicide drifting or coming into contact with another person’s
field, onto another person’s personal property, onto another person’s real
property, or onto another person, which resulted in damage.
The goal of Plant Industries Division’s Pesticide Program is to prevent unreasonable adverse effects
of pesticide use on non-target crops and the environment while helping assure
the availability of pesticides needed to maintain our quality of life. This is
accomplished by licensing pesticide applicators and dealers, registering
pesticides and performing inspections and investigations in the enforcement of
the Missouri Pesticide Use Act and the Missouri Pesticide Registration Act.
The department also administers the
Missouri DriftWatch site, a voluntary, online pesticide-sensitive crop locator
service to provide a place where producers of pesticide-sensitive specialty
crops, including bees, can map their crop and hive locations. Pesticide
applicators can use the site to find sensitive crop locations in an effort to
minimize the potential for damaging pesticide drift. For more information about
this service visit https://driftwatch.org/.
Additional information about the Missouri Department of
Agriculture can be found at Agriculture.MO.Gov. Audio clips related to this news release can be downloaded below.
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