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Dicamba training covers buffer requirements, importance of wind

The crop protection lead for Monsanto says some applicators misinterpreted buffer requirements in the federal dicamba label, contributing to the high number of drift complaints in 2017.

Dr. Ty Witten says there was confusion about what a buffer is, and is not, when spraying dicamba herbicide on soybeans a year ago.

“The first thing it is not is it’s not protective of my neighbor’s crop.  If my neighbor has a downwind susceptible crop, and that is soybeans or other things, it’s a do-not-spray situation when it’s adjacent or close to that when the wind is blowing towards it.  Now, if the wind is not blowing towards a susceptible crop, then the answer is you’ll always have a buffer.”

The EPA label requires applicators to maintain a downwind buffer between the last treated row and the nearest downwind field edge; from 110 to 220 feet depending on application rate.

But Witten tells Brownfield the buffer alone does not protect neighboring crops.

“That is where the wind speed comes in that’s really important, 3 to 10 miles-per-hour.  And understanding what’s downwind, being able to manage for that and say, ‘sometimes it’s not a good day to put (on) dicamba.”

Brownfield interviewed Witten following a Dicamba Training Session hosted by Monsanto in Mankato, Minnesota, Monday.