WASHINGTON, Sept. 27, 2017 - New herbicide resistance guidance from EPA recommends label language that reminds growers and applicators to scout fields before applications, report when herbicides are not doing their job effectively, “and proactively take action before escaped weeds become widespread in their fields.” The document accompanies another guidance on pesticide products generally, including insecticides and fungicides, which EPA called “the baseline for all resistance labeling for conventional pesticides.”
Herbicide resistance is the bigger problem, however, because herbicides are the most widely used ag chemicals, no new herbicide mode of action has been developed in the past 30 years, and the number of herbicide-resistant weeds is rapidly increasing, raising the costs to U.S. growers.
“Management of herbicide-resistant weeds, both in mitigating established herbicide-resistant weeds, and in slowing or preventing the development of new herbicide-resistant weeds, is a complex problem without a simple solution,” the agency said in that document. Neither guidance is binding on registrants or the EPA, but the agency also said in the herbicide guidance that it expects growers to report lack of performance to registrants or their representatives. EPA has responded to comments it received on the draft versions of the guidance documents. The agency’s responses are included in the online dockets, which can be accessed by clicking on the links above.
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