Potato Commission hopes soil fumigant study will mean less restrictive use

Farm and Ranch June 4, 2010 The Environmental Protection Agency plans on implementing new rules that would require buffer zones of several hundred feet when the soil fumigant metam sodium is applied through chemigation. That would affect about 60 percent of the potato fields in Washington state and metam sodium is the only chemical control growers have for the devastating potato disease verticillium wilt.

Andy Jensen, Washington State Potato Commission Director of Research, says a study was conducted this spring using a different application method for metam sodium, a shank injection directly into the soil.

Jensen: “And the reason for doing these kind of studies is to determine exactly how much of the material escapes the field and might pose a danger to passersby and nearby buildings and so forth. The latest study is looking kind of on the ground results from Washington state and realistic soil conditions and air temperature conditions for our state. The hope is that the results, which show very low off-gassing, will encourage EPA to give us less restrictive use of the product in the coming years.”

Jensen says the study results are being submitted to the EPA.

Jensen: “And our hope is that having these on the ground data will s how that those buffer zones can be smaller than EPA has proposed.”

That’s the Northwest Farm and Ranch Report. Brought to you in part by the Washington State Potato Commission. Nutrition today. Good health tomorrow. I’m Bob Hoff on Northwest Aginfo Net.