If you’re going to spray dicamba, look at which direction the wind will be blowing for the next 48 hours. If it will be blowing away from any sensitive crops for the next two days, you have greatly reduced your chances of hurting another crop.

Fortunately, most herbicides don’t have volatility issues. Unfortunately, the old formulations of 2,4-D and every formulation of dicamba DO.

Our research team plants plots in many locations, often with sensitive crops (especially Enlist soybeans) IN the plot area. They like to use dicamba where they can for weed control, so they’ve used it pre-plant with great success. One of the nice things with dicamba labeled in soybeans again is that you can spray it on XtendFlex or Xtend beans right before planting for added burndown and a small amount of residual. If you’re in an area that doesn’t get much rainfall, the residual will last a little longer. Without neighboring crops up and out of the ground, your risk of injury from drift or volatility is much less.

We used to be spraying corn before our soybeans were even out of the ground and certainly before they had much size to them. This greatly reduced the amount of drift and volatility issues we had. Occasionally, someone would hurt the end rows on the neighboring field, but it often was of little to no economic importance. The earlier you spray, the less risk you typically have.

Another reason to spray early is you do a much better job killing weeds. When you catch broadleaf weeds in the 1-to-3-inch height range, they have fewer growing points and it’s more likely you will deliver a lethal dose to each growing point and completely kill the weed.

Have you ever sprayed an 8-inch pigweed and seen the top 6 inches burn off while the bottom 2 inches either stay green or send out new branches a few days later? Your herbicide killed the top growing points but “ran out of gas” before it reached the last ones.

Spray earlier for better results!

We all make excuses for how “we have to do things this way,” but the way we operate the sprayer makes a huge difference in performance and reducing problems. Here are a few best practices to keep in mind.

• GROUND SPEED IS TOTALLY CONTROLLABLE. There are fewer off-target spray issues if you just slow down.
• BOOM HEIGHT IS ALSO TOTALLY CONTROLLABLE. Keep the boom as low as possible, depending on nozzles and spacing. Two feet above the crop is generally ideal and greatly reduces off-target movement.
• WIND. Watch out for air inversions but also don’t spray when it’s windy. A wind speed of 3 to 10 mph is the guideline. Also, avoid spraying within a couple hours of sunrise or sunset (air inversions, dew, etc.)
• TEMPERATURE. If the daytime high temperature is forecast to be 85 or less, that’s a great time to spray. Above that, there are restrictions due to increased risk of volatility.
• ADDITIVES. Use the proper DRA and VRA’s as required.
• TANKMIX PARTNERS. Add additional herbicides to reduce chances of weed resistance and ensure the best kill.
• CROP SAFENERS. DiFlexx and Status for corn contain safeners, but if you’re spraying other crops the best thing to add to dicamba formulations is MegaGro. Our research has shown it improves crop growth, lessens any response in the crop to the herbicide, and provides a healthy return on investment.

FINALLY, FOLLOW ALL LABEL AND ADDITIONAL STATE GUIDELINES FOR YOUR AREA.

The approved formulations of dicamba for soybeans and cotton received a two-year label so they sync up with the timeline of other dicamba formulations for review. If we all do a great job managing dicamba well, it should make the registration process as smooth as possible going forward.