Meeting set over harms of herbicide in state

Soybean farmers are complaining of crop damage caused by a new herbicide used in rice fields, prompting a special meeting today of a state Plant Board committee.

"We're trying to get out in front of this early," Greg Hay of Conway, chairman of the board's pesticide committee, said Wednesday.

The meeting is at 9 a.m. at the board's headquarters in Little Rock.

"It was apparent from all the comments and calls that we needed to address this before the season got further along," Hay said. "We need to get to the bottom of what's causing off-site movement and address it. It's a much-needed product."

The federal Environmental Protection Agency approved the Loyant herbicide, produced by Dow AgroSciences, last fall.

Terry Walker, the Plant Board's director, told applicators in a letter Friday "to read the product label and abide by all application restrictions" and "exercise extreme caution when making application near sensitive areas and non-target susceptible crops."

Hay said he looked at damaged fields Tuesday in Desha County, in southeast Arkansas, where plants were limp and wilted. "I've heard from aerial applicators who are very concerned," he said. "Many of them have stopped applying it because they can't keep it where it's sprayed."

He said he visited one soybean field that was damaged when the wind shifted direction "on a single pass" of the airplane applying the herbicide.

Another soybean field, separated by a line of trees from a rice field that had been sprayed with Loyant, was damaged from end to end. He said he believed that showed the herbicide moved off target through temperature inversions.

Injured plants could recover, he said, although that won't be known until the plants reach reproductive stages and start carrying pods.

"We're getting a lot of phone calls about injured soybeans," said Jarrod Hardke, a rice agronomist with the University of Arkansas System's Agriculture Division. "We're trying to get a handle on what's going on with it."

Hardke said it was too early to estimate how many acres have been damaged or to assess the number of farmers who have called in with concerns.

The Loyant herbicide can be applied by aircraft, unlike dicamba, an herbicide banned this summer from in-crop use in Arkansas because of damage in 2016 and 2017 to soybeans, produce, backyard gardens and trees and other vegetation.

Loyant also can be sprayed across all varieties of rice. Arkansas farmers planted about 1.3 million acres of rice this year, not quite half of the nation's rice crop of 2.7 million acres, and about 3.6 million acres of soybeans, according to projections by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Soybeans are highly susceptible to Loyant, Hardke said, but cotton and other broadleaf plants also can be damaged.

"It's a brand-new herbicide, and it's the first time to make these applications," he said. "Applicators are trying to adhere to the label but, even then, soybeans are particularly sensitive to it. It's a learning curve."

As of Wednesday, the Plant Board had received seven official complaints of Loyant damage, Adriane Barnes, a spokesman, said.

The label for the herbicide, as approved by the EPA and adopted this year by the Plant Board, requires a minimum of 10 gallons of Loyant per acre, whether it's sprayed by air or on the ground. Any lesser amount can result in off-target movement. The herbicide is aimed at barnyardgrass, sedges, pigweed and other weeds now resistant to other herbicides.

The label also limits spraying to conditions in which the wind speed is between 2 mph and 10 mph. For aerial spraying, the maximum distance from the point of release to the crop canopy is 10 feet, unless the pilot's safety is at risk. For ground spraying, booms can be no higher than 36 inches.

Hardke said some damaged soybean fields have been at least a half-mile from rice fields that were sprayed. Some of the distances, he said, suggest that more than just direct physical drift -- when the herbicide moves with the wind as it is being applied -- is involved.

The chemical could be moving off target during a temperature inversion, most often during early evenings when soil and air temperatures are cooler.

"This product is not known to be volatile," Hardke said, using a term often used last year for dicamba's ability to lift off sprayed plants and move off target as long as 72 hours after being applied."What we're seeing today suggests physical drift and inversion."

Hardke estimated that about 40 percent of rice acreage in Arkansas can be sprayed by ground before fields are flooded. The remainder, he said, has to be done by air because of the contour of the land and levees. He said it's unlikely all 1.3 million acres of rice are being sprayed with Loyant, simply because there's not a large enough supply of it.

The concerns, he said, have come "throughout the Delta, from top to bottom," with more calls lately coming in from northern and central Arkansas counties relatively new to rice-planting. Fewer calls have been from southern Arkansas, where there are more ground applications than air, he said.

It's early in the growing season, Hardke said, and plants could grow out of the damage, but potential yield losses are unknown. "We've seen plants recover in seven to 14 days. They're standing back up; they're looking better," he said.

Farmers and applicators, he said, must abide by the 10-acre-per-gallon minimum and avoid making applications when soybeans are nearby downwind. "If you can't do that, don't use it," he said.

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Business on 05/31/2018

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