Everyone has a choice when it comes to new requirements associated with applying certain herbicides related to the Endangered Species Act. One option is ignoring the situation and hoping it goes away, or that you are never checked for compliance. Kaitlin Flick Dinsmore believes the far better option is learning how to comply, making any necessary adjustments and recording everything you do. Then you can sleep well every night. If someone asks for your pesticide records, everything is in order.

“ESA requirements are not going away because it is the law,” explains Flick Dinsmore, a consultant based in Missouri and technical conservation agronomist for the Missouri Soybean Association. “They are here to stay. As EPA reregisters current pesticide products and registers new pesticide products, they will have requirements related to satisfying ESA guidelines added to labels.

“The Herbicide Strategy was released in 2024, and an Insecticide Strategy will be finalized in the spring of 2025. A Fungicide Strategy will come later.” Follow this link to find EPA’s Herbicide Strategy.

The first herbicide to go through EPA’s new Herbicide Strategy process was Liberty Ultra, approved in the fall of ’24. It contains glufosinate, the same active ingredient in Liberty, but in a more concentrated form.

Related:Endangered Species Act is changing weed control: What to know

“If you apply Liberty Ultra, you must comply with ESA requirements listed on the label,” Flick Dinsmore says. Here is how she suggests working through the process:

1. Read label first. “The label is the law,” Flick Dinsmore says. “Start there and read carefully so you know how to comply with ESA requirements.”

2. Mitigate pesticide runoff. EPA developed a point system to quantify how growers can satisfy this requirement. Points are assigned or earned based on practices or landscape characteristics that impact runoff potential that could affect habitats of protected species. Access the mitigation menu here.

EPA has stipulated 9 as the maximum points needed for any one herbicide. Liberty Ultra requires 3 points, Flick Dinsmore says. “They are not additive either,” she notes. “If you apply a three-way tank mixture, and labels for two herbicides require 3 points and for the other one, 5, you need 5 points, not 11.”

Here are some common practices and their associated points:

Related:Get into the weeds with ESA mitigation

If slope of the ground is under 3%, a farmer automatically earns 2 points.

“Many growers should be able to meet this requirement easily, especially for a herbicide that only requires 3 points,” Flick Dinsmore says. She notes that a mitigation calculator on the EPA website can help.

For farmers with fields with more than 3% slope and who don’t use reduced tillage or cover crops, meeting the requirements may be more challenging.

“We can help them get there, but in some cases, it may require considering other practices, like filter strips or grass waterways,” she adds.

3. Mitigate spray drift. The label will indicate how much buffer you must leave on the downwind side between the treated field and the next field. EPA indicates the maximum is 230 feet for ground applications and 320 feet for aerial applications, whether by plane, helicopter or drone.

For Liberty Ultra, it is 50 feet for aerial applications and 10 feet for ground rigs, Flick Dinsmore says.

However, if certain requirements are met, you can reduce the buffer by a certain percent, according to tables in EPA’s official Herbicide Strategy. For example, percentage reductions are available for using nozzles that form coarse or very coarse droplets, and for using spray drift-reducing adjuvants.

4. Check Bulletins Live! Two. In addition to reading and following the herbicide label, you must check EPA’s Bulletins Live! Two website within six months before applying a herbicide. This is where EPA posts essential information related to complying with ESA provisions.

5. Identify PULAs. EPA defines a pesticide use limitation area, or PULA, as “a geographic area where pesticide use is restricted to protect endangered species and their habitats.” PULAs are product-, species- and time-specific for each location.

These restrictions are in addition to what you do through runoff and spray drift mitigation, Flick Dinsmore notes. To determine if there is a PULA for the pesticide you will apply, check the EPA’s Bulletin’s Live! Two map.

6. Understand compliance. Who will enforce requirements? EPA indicates it will be left to states. So far, most state regulatory agencies are waiting for more direction from EPA, and most have not announced exact procedures.

Here is how Flick Dinsmore believes it will likely unfold. “If the state agency receives a complaint, it will investigate,” she says. That’s where this goes back to “sleeping well at night.”

“If you have followed all procedures on the herbicide label, checked Bulletins Live! Two as required, and documented what you did, you will be in good shape,” she says. “Good record-keeping will be key.

“That is what the folks at Missouri Soybeans hope will happen. And that is why I am on board to provide guidance so that every grower has the opportunity to comply.”