West Tennessee—With a total of 69 complaints filed in Tennessee against possible dicamba pesticide contamination—including from a local winery and Reelfoot Lake—the state of Tennessee is taking measures to mitigate the risk of drift of herbicides containing dicamba.
Among those filing complaints are State Rep. Bill Sanderson of Kenton, who is an owner of the White Squirrel Winery. According to an article in the Dyersburg State Gazette, Sanderson claims dicamba to be the cause of damage across six acres of his vineyard. Sanderson said the chemical has taken a substantial toll on his grapevines and worries about the future for his vineyards. Sanderson told the State Gazette that he believes the fault is with Monsanto, which developed the pesticide, and not with the farmers who use it.
The State Agriculture Department confirmed a total of 69 complaints have been filed already and specifically noted that many of the complaints originated in west Tennessee.
The state is not considering a ban on the pesticide at this time, but the State Department of Agriculture today did send out a press release setting out new rules governing dicamba.
According to the press release, in accordance with new rules filed with the Secretary of State:
- Anyone applying dicamba products must be certified as a private applicator or licensed as a pest control operator in the category of Agricultural Pest Control (AGE), and is required to keep records for such applications.
- The use of older formulations of dicamba products for the remainder of this agricultural growing season is prohibited.
- To minimize the potential for off-target movement of the product due to temperature inversion, dicamba may only be applied from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. in the respective time zone for the location of application.
- Applying dicamba over the top of cotton after first bloom is prohibited.
Reelfoot Lake State Park also has reported hundreds of trees damaged in that area, possibly by the drift of the pesticide, but that has not yet been confirmed.
This action is in response to primarily farmer to farmer complaints currently under investigation by TDA of suspected dicamba related damage on cropland. These measures are based on the recommendations of UT Extension and only apply to dicamba products purchased and used for agricultural purposes.
Photo by AgWeb.
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