New technologies and chemistries continue to help farmers produce more yields on fewer acres. By properly using products, like dicamba, crop farmers have seen good results.
Dicamba is a broad-spectrum herbicide that can be applied to the leaves or the soil to control annual and perennial broadleaf weeds in grain crops and grasslands. Iowa farmer Steve Anderson and Minnesota farmer Scott Dauk have seen great results using dicamba on their farms. The two discussed their operations during a panel discussion at the 2018 Farm Progress Show in Boone, Iowa, on Aug. 29.
“This year we have seen challenges from a cool spring with a mid-April snow and then temperatures warmed up quickly. We were planting eight days after the last snow and we had to get help spraying because everything was happening so quickly,” Anderson said. He is a fifth generation corn and soybean farmer from Beaman, Iowa, who also raises seed corn and seed soybeans.
Dauk, from Madison Lake, Minnesota, also experienced a late spring and mid-April snow, but started fieldwork by April 29 and had 100-degree temperatures by Memorial Day weekend. “We had to get corn sprayed quickly and had some of our acres suffer from being drowned out,” Dark said.
Anderson started using dicamba on half of his soybean crop last year to see how it would work since it was his first experience with the product. This year, he has switched to using it on his entire soybean crop since it worked so well.
Dauk had heard concerns with dicamba drift issues in other areas, so he did some research on the product before using it. What he learned was few problems occurred if parameters with weather, wind and nozzles were met and if label directions were followed. He then decided to go all in and used the product on all his acres starting two years ago.
“I attended training for using dicamba. It’s very important to follow label instructions, especially when it comes to watching wind speed and spraying at the proper height,” Dauk said. “We have seen no burn down after spraying.”
Anderson agreed that following proper labels is important, especially with a product some have had issues with. “We had neighbors who were fearful of us using dicamba. We talked to our neighbors before we started using dicamba. Communication is important. We had buffer areas where needed to stay friendly with those people. Everyone at our farm who is using the product, has been through training. We absolutely want to prevent drift and that means spraying with a 10 mile per hour or less wind,” Anderson said.
Anderson feels that products like dicamba are an easy sell when you can look at the fields where it was used and see how clean they are. The other benefit is the residual lasts all season and no soybean plants are killed with this chemical.
“We want fewer weed resistance problems like we have seen with some products. Our No. 1 issue is waterhemp, we also deal with giant ragweed and volunteer corn in some of our bean fields. To have a product that can cover all of that, plus grasses is great,” Anderson said.
Dauk said his worst weed problems are with waterhemp and giant ragweed also. He has used a pretreatment on the ground prior to planting, as well as getting the residual from dicamba that is sprayed prior to June 15, to get good results.
“We know we have to have a plan for our fields and keep to them. Weather can force us to make changes at times. We used to use Roundup on everything because it was the product that worked and now we have issues with resistance to it,” Dauk said. “We know we have to use different combinations now to prevent those resistance issues.”
Both Anderson and Dauk know it’s important to continue to learn about new ways to combine chemistries with new seed traits to have a successful crop. They commended industry companies for spending money on research and development to help provide better modes of action against problems.
“We are looking at having some of the best yields this year that we’ve ever had. Everything has fallen into place for us and we hope to average 240 bushels per acre on corn and 70 bushels per acre on soybeans,” Anderson said. “That doesn’t happen without having the right products and the right seed.”
Jennifer Carrico can be reached at [email protected].
