Cotton growers know exactly how it feels to walk out and see major damage from herbicide drift on their fields. After all, this has been a way of life for cotton growers for decades as the extremely 2,4-D-sensitive crop has been wiped out in many areas by accidental drift from spraying neighboring fields of corn or soybeans.

But this year, just as there is light at the end of the tunnel with new, 2,4-D-resistant cotton coming onto the market, there is a new issue of herbicide drift. Only this time it is affecting soybean growers who are seeing their fields damaged by dicamba drift from neighboring fields planted with new, dicamba-resistant beans or — in much less frequent cases — to neighboring fields of dicamba-resistant cotton.

This year marks the second year of dicamba-resistant cotton varieties, and there has been a big increase in acres planted. Part of the reason for that is the release of cotton that is resistant to 2,4-D, a technology so popular that seed was in short supply in the spring of 2017, and growers turned to the dicamba-resistant varieties instead.

It is also the second year for dicamba-resistant soybeans, and there likewise has been an increase in the acres of those varieties planted to try to give producers of both crops a leg up against glyphosate-resistant weeds.

Southern Kansas Cotton Growers crop consultant and public relations spokesman Rex Friesen says he’s seen “plenty of cupped beans,” referring to the telltale injury that indicates dicamba damage.

Kansas producers are not alone in dicamba issues. Both Arkansas and Missouri had so many complaints of dicamba injury that their regulators shut down the use of the dicamba herbicides for at least some period of time in the summer of 2017.

Friesen says he is disappointed to see the problems arise because he believes they have largely been created by a combination of ignorance and carelessness.

“I think there is a lot of ignorance from growers who didn’t bother to pay attention in the educational meetings they were required to attend when buying this new technology,” he says. “The chemical companies went out of their way to say that it was very, very important to follow directions. They were quite specific on what you must do to safely use this herbicide, and it was a long list.”

Friesen says the chemical companies may have expected too much from growers when it comes to precisely following directions.

“I continue to believe that if the label is followed correctly, there is minimal danger of damaging other crops,” he says. “If the label is not followed carefully and correctly, then the risk goes way up. And what we have had is a lot of people not following the label carefully and correctly.”

Both cotton and soybean growers have the option of two new technologies to combat herbicide-resistant weeds. One is Liberty Link — soybeans and cotton resistant to the herbicide Liberty — and the other is dicamba-resistant crops.

But cotton growers have an advantage. Herbicide-resistant traits are stacked in cotton for resistance to all three major herbicides — glyphosate, Liberty and dicamba. Soybean varieties are resistant to only one of the three technologies and remain sensitive to the other two.

“It would help a lot if people would talk to each other and work together,” Friesen says. “If we could all work together to group chemistries so people in the same area would use the same genetics, that would be great. But just letting your neighbor know what you are planting would help. But it would solve the problem if people would follow the label exactly. I just cannot overemphasize that.”

He says Liberty Link beans appear to be very sensitive to dicamba herbicide, more so than dicamba-resistant beans are to Liberty.

“Cotton growers are very aware of drift issues from the years of 2,4-D damage,” he says. “In some ways, this has been a ‘welcome to our world’ for soybean growers from the cotton world. But I hate to see these problems. It doesn’t take much to mess this whole thing up and deprive us of a valuable technology.”

Friesen says using a variety of herbicides is necessary to prevent the development of weeds resistant to any one technology.

For farmers who have suffered drift damage, Friesen says it has been his experience that it can be difficult to recover losses.

“I just hope that we can find a way to work together and get this issue solved so we can keep all of these valuable technologies in the toolbox for our producers,” Friesen says. “They are all good technologies, and we need them all.”