Rainy Spring May Wash Out Dicamba Pesticide Analysis

Record-setting rains that swamped fields and delayed planting across the Midwest this spring may also harm the ability of pesticide regulators to see whether new rules covering the use of dicamba are effective.

Dicamba is a herbicide that controls broadleaf weeds. Crops bio-engineered with dicamba-tolerant traits can then be sprayed without being damaged. But dicamba also has history of drifting into neighboring fields. That’s what happened in 2017 and 2018, resulting in millions of acres of damage to off-target crops in several states.

Partly in response to the drift issue, the Environmental Protection Agency in October 2018 extended the registration ...