Preparing grain crop producers to properly utilize dicamba based herbicides was a major educational effort by the University of Kentucky College of Agriculture Food and Environment prior to the 2018 growing season.  Dicamba herbicides are used to combat problem weeds such as palmer amaranth and waterhemp.   By nature, dicamba is a volatile herbicide that can move off target if not handled correctly.

 Curtis Dame, Darrell Simpson, and Vicki Shadrick, Extension Agents for Agriculture and Natural Resources in Hopkins, Muhlenberg, and Webster counties worked with Dr. Travis Legleiter, University of Kentucky weed scientist,  to promote and host a dicamba specific educational training.  One hundred and seven producers attended the program from the green river and pennyrile area.  Producers gained knowledge about temperature inversions,  wind speed for dicamba based herbicide application, correct boom height, and correct record keeping procedures.  Forty-nine producers utilized their mobile telephones to text their responses to a survey conducted immediately after the program. Ninety-five percent texted the correct answer regarding the maximum boom height when making a  dicamba based herbicides application. Ninety-eight percent, of the program participants, responded correctly that all dicamba based herbicide applications require recordkeeping.  Only 63 percent of the participants texted the correct answer when asked when a temperature inversion was most likely to occur. Ninety-six percent of those attending the program, responded with the correct answer when asked what the wind speed parameters were when using a  dicamba based herbicide.  

When asked to provide one word that depicted their thoughts about dicamba based herbicides, only 32 of the producers responded.  Scared, headache, liability, expensive, difficult, limited, and critical where some of those words but the one response texted more than all others was the word complicated. Although University of Kentucky College of Agriculture Food and Environment Extension Agents for Agriculture and Natural Resources and weed science specialists Dr. Travis Legleiter and Dr. J.D. Green have improved the knowledge level of producers in Kentucky, there is still some work to do.   Additional educational programs are already in place for 2019.