News

Minnesota Department of Ag releases state dicamba restrictions for 2019

The Minnesota Department of Agriculture has released state-specific guidelines for dicamba use in 2019.

In addition to federal regulations, Minnesota will again restrict the use of the herbicide after June 20^th. The state will not enforce a temperature cutoff like it did in 2018.

MDA Commissioner Dave Frederickson says they now have two years’ worth of data to show what measures can and should be taken to limit the potential drift of dicamba to non-target crops.

The number of dicamba drift complains lowered dramatically with the date and temperature cutoffs in place, but many Minnesota farmers complained they could not use the technology in time mostly because of wet conditions.

There were 253 reports in 2017 and 53 this past year.

In Minnesota, the XtendiMax, Engenia, and FeXapan formulations of dicamba are Restricted Use Pesticides for retail sale to and for use only by Certified Applicators.

Minnesota Soybean Growers president Michael Petefish of Claremont says the Association is encouraged to see this label continue to be available, and that removing the temperature restrictions gives growers a larger timeframe to use this technology in a responsible fashion.