Is it Spray Drift and What do I do?

On average, each year the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA) receives approximately 120 pesticide misuse complaints, of which 60% are pesticide drift complaints.  Many of you know that the number of complaints has been much higher in recent years due to the allowed use of dicamba on soybeans and the apparent extreme sensitivity of surrounding plants to small amounts of dicamba. 

Detailed label restrictions were quickly put into place to reduce the incidence of drift with those products.  Regardless, drift complaints have been around for as long as pesticides have and certainly, dicamba is not the only one to blame.  It’s July and we are in the midst of the growing season for gardens, landscapes, and field crops.  At this point, thousands of acres have been sprayed with herbicides and the emails concerning possible herbicide injury to non-target plants have started to come in.