By Abigail Bottar
Farm Manager John Williams walks through a greenhouse at Sola Gratia Farm surrounded by tomato plants that tower over him. He points to the curled leaves on one of the plants that he says was damaged by dicamba.
“Often, the plants response to that, getting hit with that pesticide is aborting fruit, just aborting flowers before they get pollinated,” he said.
Pesticides like dicamba applied to crops and lawns sometimes drift in the air for miles, harming plants and trees on public land or other farms.
There’s often no recourse for those with damaged plants.
“It’s a little bit unknown of how you get it addressed,” Williams said. “How could you potentially hold someone accountable?”
Dicamba is especially prone to drifting. Unlike other herbicides, it can vaporize even days after being applied in warmer weather and then travel for miles in the wind.
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