Originally published Sunday, Oct. 15.
PEMISCOT COUNTY, Mo. • It’s been a stressful growing season for Chris Crosskno — one characterized by the cupped and crinkled soybean leaves that were a common sight across millions of acres of the nation’s farmland this year.Â
“We had about 2,000 acres of Liberty soybeans and every one of them was damaged at some point,†says Crosskno, who farms deep in southeast Missouri’s Bootheel region and across the state line in Arkansas.
The distinctive symptoms point to exposure to dicamba, a decades-old chemical the agriculture industry is now turning to in the fight against increasingly stubborn “superweeds†— a controversial shift that has borne different results for different farmers and left the agriculture community divided.
Damage like that experienced by Crosskno has been widespread across the Farm Belt, causing conflicts between neighbors, recriminations and lawsuits, culminating with the Environmental Protection Agency announcing Friday that increased regulatory oversight will be required for dicamba applications in 2018.
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Sparking the controversy was a shift to new technology spearheaded by Monsanto, the seeds and traits giant that, for years, has counted the herbicide, Roundup, as its signature product. But with weeds developing resistance to Roundup, dicamba has begun to emerge as a successor over the last couple of years, as the Creve Coeur-based company introduced new cotton and soybean varieties genetically modified to tolerate the chemical, enabling farmers to spray it over the top of those crops.
The new dicamba system — fully available for the first time this growing season — is hailed by many farmers in the Bootheel as a critical tool that has helped facilitate record yields and some of the “cleanest†or least weed-afflicted crops since Roundup-resistant seed varieties first came out in the 1990s.
But others, such as Crosskno, have not shared the abundance enabled by the technology, and have perhaps even been hurt by it.
Though an effective weedkiller, dicamba is a notoriously volatile chemical, meaning it is prone to turning into vapor that can drift off target. Soybeans are particularly sensitive to dicamba damage, but many types of nontolerant plants — including trees and garden vegetables — can also be susceptible to injury.
The dicamba varieties approved for use on Monsanto’s dicamba-tolerant Xtend crops this growing season were less volatile than older forms of the chemical, but as the acreage sprayed with the herbicide rose across the country this year, so too did reports of damage caused by off-target movement.
With the harvest ongoing, the impact that damage could have on Crosskno’s yields is still coming into focus. But he worries that, like some of his neighbors are reporting, he could lose 8 to 10 bushels of his LibertyLink soybeans per acre — a loss that would amount to $180,000 or so.
To avoid future losses, Crosskno says he’ll have no choice but to switch, begrudgingly, to Monsanto’s dicamba-tolerant seed next year, sparing himself the stress he has endured this season.
“You either get on board or get hurt,†he said. “I absolutely hate it. I despise the idea that Monsanto can dictate what we have to use, have to plant.â€
Mid-South hardest hit
Crosskno’s experiences — of frustration, financial stress and pressure to conform to a controversial new technology — are ones that many other farmers have faced since Monsanto brought its new dicamba-tolerant crops to market.
Complaints of dicamba-related crop damage have mushroomed into a this year, surfacing in 21 states and launching thousands of case-by-case investigations by state departments of agriculture. The Mid-South has been hit especially hard, with northeast Arkansas and the Bootheel standing out as areas with the nation’s highest concentration of damage reports.
Kevin Bradley, a University of Missouri plant sciences professor who has closely tracked the issue, says he thinks the more pronounced damage in states such as Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee may be tied to the fact that both cotton and soy are grown in the region, while other areas don’t support multiple dicamba-tolerant seed varieties.
“My perception is, the areas with the highest rates of adoption and use of the products had the biggest problems,†Bradley said.
Farmers and other agribusiness workers in the Bootheel estimate that upward of 90 percent of area soybeans planted this year were Xtend seeds, compared to just a fraction one year prior. They said use of Xtend cotton is now nearly ubiquitous in the area, even though it still represented a sizable majority of the region’s crop in 2016.
As it is with Crosskno, self-preservation was a main motivator for many in the Bootheel to adopt Xtend crops this year, just one year after rampant damage from the chemical was . Last year’s damage was widely blamed on illegal, or “off-label†applications of older, more volatile forms of dicamba, since none of the lower-volatility sprays intended for use with the new seeds had yet been approved. But the availability of dicamba-resistant seed created the temptation for some growers to spray illegally, jeopardizing the crops of others nearby.
“I got burnt so bad last year with dicamba on my beans,†said Ted Rouse, who also farms in both Arkansas and Missouri. “I planted all dicamba seed (this year) just for self-protection to keep from having that damage again.
“Most everybody in my area did the very same thing that I did,†Rouse adds. “We were forced to buy the seed even though they’re more expensive.â€
He said the dicamba-tolerant seed can cost about 20 percent more than alternative varieties. But some say it’s worth it for the yields, reduced herbicide costs and peace of mind.
‘Double-edged sword’
Very different outcomes and attitudes toward dicamba are unfolding on the other end of Pemiscot County from Crosskno’s land. There, Jason Bean’s cotton fields have an almost manicured look to them this year, interspersed by clean dirt rows free of the weeds that have been a problem for more than a decade.
Since 2004, Bean says he’s battled nuisance weeds — namely pigweed and marestail — resistant to Roundup. But this year, dicamba has finally given Bean an answer for them.
“We’re having the best crop we’ve ever had,†said Bean, who planted entirely dicamba-tolerant cotton and soy this year. “We’re having record yields in the Bootheel.â€
He says the benefits to his bottom line have been twofold. Not only are his yields up, but he has spent less on weed control.
“I’ve had to put so many herbicides out trying to fight resistant weeds in years past,†Bean said. “(This year) I have cut back my herbicides by $30 an acre to give you what, in my opinion, is a safer product.â€
The bumper crops from Xtend seeds are generating plenty of buzz.
“Eighty-five-bushel (per acre) beans, that’s almost unheard of. And that’s commonplace this year,†says Carlis McHugh, who owns Billy’s Steakhouse in Portageville as well as farmland that he rents out.
For the second straight year, dicamba has been one of the hottest topics of conversation at the restaurant’s bar each night, where McHugh works behind the counter.
On a recent evening, McHugh and a farmer at the bar made quick conversation about the weather before pivoting almost immediately to the performance of dicamba-tolerant seed varieties. They’re both enjoying strong yields from them on their land this year, after switching away from nontolerant crops that got “burned†badly last growing season.
“It’s a double-edged sword,†McHugh says, acknowledging the extensive reports of damage that have been intertwined with the herbicide’s more widespread use. “There’s no doubt there’s an issue with it.â€
Lots at stake
Even as complaints have billowed, agribusiness companies have spent recent months strongly denying that there are inherent flaws with the new forms of dicamba made by Monsanto, BASF and DuPont.
The new products’ volatility has been an especially divisive matter, exposing a rift that has put weed scientists and agricultural extension researchers at odds with industry officials accused of failing to acknowledge evidence that volatility, while reduced, is still a root cause of nontolerant crop damage.
“It’s not a no-volatility formulation, it’s a low-volatility formulation, and it needs to be managed correctly,†said Scott Partridge, Monsanto’s vice president of global strategy. “If it is misapplied, it can move to places that it shouldn’t move to. But if it’s applied in accordance to the label, it will not.â€
Partridge added that the company’s investigation into damage complaints suggests that the majority are “correctable by training and education†about application techniques.
Many outside researchers, though, think volatility warrants continued scrutiny — something that is “hard to address when registrants, despite evidence, will not consider it an issue,†said Larry Steckel, a University of Tennessee plant sciences professor, shared at a recent dicamba summit that Monsanto held with academic experts.
The meeting, Monsanto officials said in a statement, was arranged to “collaboratively discuss recommendations for training and education for the 2018 season†regarding the use of its dicamba products. BASF has planned a similar meeting centered on its dicamba spray, Engenia.
With lots of money invested in dicamba and a windfall that it is just starting to realize, Monsanto has lots at stake as it tries to dodge bans or restrictions that some regulators have implemented or are considering placing on the technology.
This year, for instance, the company broke ground on a new with a reported price tag of $975 million, where dicamba will be a chief output.
But the company’s steep upfront investment has paid off handsomely, so far. In a with the Post-Dispatch, Robb Fraley, Monsanto’s executive vice president and chief technology officer, said Xtend products have delivered “one of the largest launches we’ve ever had.â€
Barring stricter regulatory intervention, that business for dicamba technology looks to keep humming next year.
“We’re anticipating that dicamba-tolerant soybeans may approach 50 percent of planted soybean acres in the United States next year,†Partridge said.
Learning from experience
Before Friday’s announcement about further certification requirements and oversight, the EPA had been evaluating in-season use of the chemical beyond a certain date next year. The restrictions the agency announced instead reflect recommendations made by Monsanto, . Arkansas, meanwhile, has already established a seasonal ban for the 2018 growing season, set to take effect in April.
Crosskno said any state bans would not affect his decision to switch to Xtend.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s illegal or legal, someone will spray the chemical, so we’ll have to switch,†he said.
Bradley said bans that encourage use of the chemical early in the season, when temperatures are cooler and volatility is reduced, could be effective.
“This is a tool that farmers could use for pre-plant use probably very successfully,†Bradley said. “But we really start having a lot of problems when we start spraying this over the top for our resistant pigweeds.â€
Some worry, though, that as more farmland is converted to Xtend, dicamba damage will persist, if not worsen, without seasonal cutoff dates for use. In such a scenario, Tom Burnham, another Missouri and Arkansas farmer struck by dicamba symptoms, predicts the chemical “will ban itself by the end of next year†if Midwestern states that are major soybean producers see Xtend usage leap from 25 percent to 50 or 60 percent of their soy acreage.
Many Bootheel growers, though, want to give dicamba technology time to work out any kinks, echoing the industry’s calls for better education about application methods aimed to minimize volatility and physical drift.
“We need more certification and need more education,†Bean said. “The last thing we want to do is hurt anybody.â€
“This is a tool in our arsenal that we have to have,†added Terry Weaver, a grower near Holcomb pleased with his switch to Xtend seed this year. “We grow by our mistakes and learn by them. And that’s what we had to do this year.â€
But Weaver and others know that it’s just a matter of time before weeds develop resistance to dicamba, and the cycle repeats itself.
“The future of weed control is probably going to be less reliant on herbicides and we’re going to have to get used to that,†Bradley said. “I think that’s already on the horizon.â€