Northwest Iowa — Dicamba — it’s a herbicide that’s been used on farms for generations. The first brand — Banvel — was released in 1962. But there are now some major legal issues with Dicamba.
Iowa State University Extension and Outreach agronomist Joel De Jong tells us that the herbicide used to be used only on corn, as it kills broadleaf plants — including broadleaf weeds AND broadleaf crops like soybeans. He says the problem started when certain companies developed soybeans with a dicamba-resistant gene, and people started spraying dicamba over entire fields to get the weeds that were resistant to the active ingredient in Roundup — glyphosate.
Farmers whose crops were not dicamba-resistant filed a class-action lawsuit after their crops were damaged or destroyed by dicamba drift.
De Jong tells us what the court decided.
He says the timing couldn’t have been much worse.
He says the dicamba-resistant soybeans were created so that dicamba could be used to get rid of waterhemp and other Roundup-resistant weeds. De Jong says you can call your crop advisor or an agronomist you trust if you need help deciding what to do from here, or you can click here for more information.
