JOHN SANDMEYER, Seed, Crop Protection & Nutrients Products Director
On February 6, 2024, a federal court in Arizona vacated EPA’s 2020 registrations for dicamba products to be sprayed on dicamba-tolerant crops. These crops include Bayer’s XtendiMax®, BASF’s Engenia® and Syngenta’s Tavium®, which are the only products previously registered to spray over Xtend® or XtendFlex® soybeans.
Following the court’s ruling, the EPA on February 14th ruled that any dicamba products in the marketplace today may be sold to growers and be applied to the crop according to each state’s guidelines. In Minnesota, south of I-94, they must be applied by June 12th. However, BASF, Bayer, and Syngenta will not be able to manufacture anymore dicamba products to bring into the distribution.
How does this affect you? If you were planning to use dicamba products in 2024, you will be able to do so if there is still a supply of those products. NuWay-K&H Cooperative still has some supply available. So, make sure you talk to your Agronomy Account Manager. This product will need to be in your hands by May 12th. After that date, NuWay-K&H will not be able to sell any XtendiMax, Engenia or Tavium according to the EPA ruling. Again, once dicamba products are gone from the supply chain, no more will be added.
We’ll keep you posted on any future developments related to dicamba.
Preparing for spring
Planning is everything when it comes to having the supplies you need. Right now, supplies of crop protection products look good, but we will always face challenges when it comes to having enough product on hand. One of those challenges is transportation.
We realize it is hard to plan, especially in a year of high interest rates and volatile prices. As I said, supplies of crop protection products appear good, but just in time inventory is hard to manage as transportation plays a big role in this and that could be something that puts a delay in product movement.
How can we get the products you need to the field when you need them if you haven’t already spoken for them? Please understand. Interest rates and volatile prices affect your cooperative as well. We want to manage our inventory levels the best we can so we need all the help we can by planning ahead of time to get those inventory levels right-sized for the season.
Fertilizer is another product we manage closely to make sure we have the supply you need but carry as little over as possible. Here again, transportation is a challenge when trying to acquire soil nutrients on short notice.
That’s why we’re asking you, if you haven’t already, to start making plans today with your account manager. We need to know what and how much you intend to use so we can secure a supply and get it shipped.
