In 2019, IDA issued 100 monetary penalty notices to applicators for dicamba misuse.  Some of the errors uncovered in the investigations had to do with misses on the recordkeeping requirements.  To help our members avoid common recordkeeping mistakes and better understand what IDA expects when reviewing your records, we have prepared a simple guidance document to help you better document critical items such as wind speed and direction and the required buffers.  Click here to see the IFCA guidance document.  IFCA appreciates IDA's input on this document and we also appreciate Dr. Aaron Hager's help in its development.  We have also posted the guidance on the IFCA website.  

 

IFCA provides many resources about dicamba use on our Illinois Dicamba Training website, including links to the on-line dicamba training programs, fillable recordkeeping forms, the federal labels and the Illinois Special Local Needs Labels.  

 

Certified Applicator Exam Update:  IDA reports that so far over 180 people have been able to become certified applicators for 2020 utilizing the on-line testing platform.  If you still have employees or farmer-customers that need to become certified applicators, follow the instructions here to request the on-line exam.  Only those needing to be certified applicators to apply dicamba or paraquat must successfully pass the exam in the relevant category (i.e. field crops).  Operators applying other products can work under the supervision of a certified applicator this year only without having to take the General Standards exam.