AFTER 4 DAYS of intensive interest in no-till and cover crops at the mid-January 25th anniversary National No-Tillage Conference, it was encouraging to recognize interest in cover crops continues to grow.

Illegal use of dicamba this past summer — which resulted in thousands of soybean acres and many acres of other crops damaged in Missouri, Arkansas and Tennessee — shows just how desperate some growers were to control herbicide-resistant weeds.

Recent approvals for two herbicides containing new formulations of dicamba offer no-tillers more options for over-the-top control of weeds in soybeans planted this spring. But those new labels won’t repair what happened when drift and yield loss occurred during the 2016 soybean growing season, due to growers in at least 10 states illegally using older versions of readily driftable dicamba to take advantage of the anticipated higher yield benefits with Monsanto’s new Roundup Ready 2 Xtend soybeans.