As most of you are aware, we are monitoring the dicamba and Xtend soybean situation fairly closely. There have been a number of articles in the press recently regarding drift complaints and acreage affected in other states. The purpose of this article is to provide an update on the official drift complaint situation here in Indiana and let you know how to proceed if you want to participate in the data collection process, but not file an official drift complaint with the Office of the Indiana State Chemist.
The Office of the Indiana State Chemist has indicated that the overall number of drift complaints (all herbicides), and complaints related to dicamba are tracking ahead of last year’s pace. As of Friday, July 6th, OISC had 135 drift complaints with 50 suspected to be related to dicamba. Last year on this date, OISC had 111, with 26 dicamba suspects. Given that almost all the soybeans in the state now are past cut off stage for dicamba, we assume that dicamba applications in Indiana should have ceased. However, with the number of weedy fields we have observed throughout the state, we suspect spraying will continue despite the fact that these applications are beyond the cutoff date on the label. For those of you that came to winter training, remember that it takes 14 to 21 days for injury symptoms to show up. So, there could be continued development of symptoms on sensitive vegetation like non-extend beans and other sensitive species. We suspect that the number of complaints (official and unofficial) and samples submitted to our Plant Pest Diagnostic Lab will continue to roll in for at least a couple of more weeks.
The University of Missouri weed science program is surveying soybean and cotton producing states every two weeks or so for updates on number of drift complaints filed with regulatory agencies, and estimates of dicamba damage to soybeans and other sensitive species. To view the latest report, see this website: https://ipm.missouri.edu/IPCM/2018/6/dicambaInjuryUpdate/
If you are interested in contributing data to this report, we (Purdue Weed Science) are surveying our Purdue Extension ANR Educators every couple of weeks for information from their counties. If you contact one of the educators with information, they will relay the information to us and we will submit it to the University of Missouri personnel.
However, if you have vegetation (soybean or other sensitive species) that has been damaged by herbicides and you want to file an official complaint, then you need to contact the Office of the Indiana State chemist.
