The National Cotton Council recently submitted comments supporting a registration request from Ag Logic LLC for a generic aldicarb product, MEYMIK 15G.

The registration request includes uses on cotton, dry beans, peanuts, soybeans, sugar beets and sweet potatoes.

Ag Logic LLC, a subsidiary of MEY Corp., submitted its registration request in October of 2010. On March 30, 2011, EPA published a Federal Registernotice seeking public comment on the proposed registration under the Docket No. EPA-HQ-OPP-2010-1021.

Since its introduction 40 years ago, aldicarb has been a key tool in cotton production for control of early season insect and nematode populations as well as for lygus control. Alternative products are unable to achieve comparable levels of control or cost effectiveness when compared to aldicarb for these pests.

The NCC comments stressed the importance of this product for producers and referred to research presented at the 2011 Beltwide Cotton Conferences that evaluated the effects on cotton yields in the product’s absence.

Over a five-year period, cotton yields from untreated control plots were compared to plots treated with aldicarb. Plots treated with aldicarb produced an additional 198 pounds of cotton fiber per acre and an additional 297 pounds of cottonseed.

Based on this research and the assumption that 25 percent of U.S. cotton acres are treated with aldicarb each year, 2011 production losses due to aldicarb’s absence are valued at $816 million.

The Georgia Farm Bureau is another farm group which has requested the EPA to re-consider the position on aldicarb registration. That information can be found at http://southeastfarmpress.com/cotton/epa-urged-consider-aldicarb-re-registration.