One hundred-six farmers received Restricted-Use (RU) Pesticide Certification training this program year at eight Todd County Extension pesticide educational programs.  As always, safety when handling chemicals was a major emphasis of these sessions, along with proper pest identification so that appropriate control methods may be utilized. In these trainings, farmers were reminded about the importance of the pesticide label and how to read it to get the information they need to safely and effectively use a given chemical.  Other topics emphasized included the environmental concerns related to farm chemical use, and the importance of proper spray calibration.

 A special focus of this winter’s Pesticide meetings was educating farmers about changes that have occurred in the Federal Worker Protection Standards (WPS) affecting farm laborers. Most of the changes took effect on January 1, 2017 and the rest took effect January 1, 2018. In Todd County, tobacco and vegetable farmers are those most impacted by these changes. WPS rules now mandate that field workers receive WPS training every year, prior to their starting work. In the past, they were only required to have training once every five years, and they could work five days before being trained. Under the new rules, the number of topics that have to be covered for workers has expanded from 11 to 23; and farmers must now keep records of the training they do for their workers. Employers must now also provide workers access to labels and safety data sheets (SDSs) for the chemicals that they are applying on the farm. These are just a few of the dozens of WPS rules that have changed in the past year and a half. My goal is to continually utilize the opportunity of Pesticide Certification Training to keep farmers up-to-date on WPS requirements.

  Another topic that we spend extra time on in the Todd County trainings is rotating pesticides to slow or avoid the development resistant pest populations. Kentucky (and Todd County) already has significant populations of resistant pests--particularly weeds. Glyphosate-resistant marestail is probably our most common resistant weed; but we also have resistance issues with Italian ryegrass, Palmar amaranth, waterhemp, etc. We also could see resistance issues develop with insecticides and fungicides, particularly in specialty crops like fruits and vegetables. Farmers have a tendency to be pragmatic--they like to use what works. But the increase in herbicide-resistant weeds is helping many of them understand how their chemical choices can be a factor in the development of resistant pests.

 Farmers who produce grain were also encouraged to attend the special classes held this winter that allowed them to obtain a license to apply special dicamba-containing chemicals on Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybeans. Dicamba is a product that is still effective in controlling Palmer amaranth and waterhemp. Soybeans with these new traits were widely planted in Todd County this year, even by farmers who had no intention of spraying dicamba.