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Illinois dicamba misuse complaints exceed last year’s record

The Illinois Department of Agriculture has received more dicamba related pesticide misuse complaints in 2019 than any other year despite their efforts to minimize dicamba drift.

Doug Owens with the department shared with Brownfield the number of complaints as of Wednesday afternoon.

“For total number of complaints, we have 693. Of those, 491 are alleged dicamba involvement complaints.”

He says that compares to 246 dicamba related complaints in 2017 and 430 in 2018. Owens says extending the state’s dicamba application cutoff date might have had an impact on the complaint numbers.

“Most of the dicamba went on that extended cut-off between the first of July and the 15^th. So, that probably had a lot to do with the number of complaints we are receiving now.”

Owens says since the release of dicamba, more people have become familiar with the complaint process and their willingness to file formal complaints could also be driving the numbers.

He tells Brownfield the cases are still under investigation and will need to be completed before any further policies on dicamba application can be created.