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MDA cites changes to federal labeling process as reason for forgoing Minnesota-specific dicamba cutoff
A more complicated process has resulted in at least one state forgoing a state-specific cutoff date for dicamba applications in 2021.
Minnesota Department of Agriculture assistant commissioner Whitney Place tells Brownfield they will follow the federal label, which has a cutoff of June 30th.
“A couple of factors went into MDA’s decision. First of all, the EPA took away our ability to make state-specific requirements through the process that we’ve been using the last couple of years. It’s called the 24C process.”
Previously, Minnesota prohibited dicamba applications after June 20th.
Because these are new formulations with new requirements at the federal level, she says MDA didn’t have sufficient data to validate an earlier cutoff.
“We like to make all our decisions based on science, and what we hope to do throughout this year is collect that data. We really rely on farmers to provide us with information through our voluntary reporting system.”
Place says if growers see drift in any of their fields, they can report it without starting an investigation on their neighbors or anything like that.
