The EPA recently announced its decision to re-register several dicamba products for another five years, providing important clarity for farmers on the herbicide's availability for the 2021 growing season and creating more options for farmers’ unique crop management needs. As we look to the next five years and beyond, we will continue to support innovative testing, accuracy and educational programs, to ensure that farmers can be confident in the safety of these products.
As part of our WinField United business, a retailer-owned wholesale supplier of crop protection inputs, we invest in tools that ensure the precise application of these products. For example, at the WinField United Innovation Center we use a massive indoor wind tunnel to study spray dynamics, so we can measure exactly how and where tiny droplets of crop products are dispersed. The goal? To optimize the product so it goes where it needs to — and not where it doesn’t — and, ultimately allow farmers to be more efficient as they spray their crops.
This is particularly important for a product like dicamba, which has a lot of guidelines and restrictions surrounding its volatility. For certain brands for the 2021 growing season, Volitality Reduction Agents (VRA) will be required in addition to the previously required Drift-Reduction Agents (DRA) for every application. WinField United is positioned to provide the best products and the agronomy insights to indicate the best timing to apply these products and comply with label requirements. The name and more details about WinField United’s new VRA brand will be available in the coming weeks.
Outside of the lab and in fields, we help farmers pair data from their fields with the more than 6 million quality data points that are generated annually from our Answer Plot® program. We take that data and run it through a number of tools in WinField United’s ag tech portfolio to better understand and evaluate their crop inputs and maximize efficiency and profitability. Sustainability experts in our Truterra business unit also ensure products are being used safely and effectively on the field, acre by acre, through the Truterra Insights Engine.
As a system, Land O’Lakes is continually working to advocate on your behalf and come up with innovative solutions to address our industry’s toughest challenges.