Series of auxin herbicide trainings for area producers set for February – April

By Corrie Bowen
County Extension Agent
Wharton County

The Texas A&M AgriLife Extension Service will conduct a series of Auxin Trainings for producers in the Wharton and Matagorda County area from February – April 2020.  This special, annual training that was required  for the past two years for the new dicamba formulations applied on tolerant cotton and soybean crops,  will now be a one-hour training (in 2019 it was a 2-hour training).  In addition to the EPA mandated dicamba applicator training, the Texas Department of Agriculture has added 2,4-D Choline formulations (Enlist Duo® and Enlist One) for use on 2,4-D tolerant crops to be included in the annual mandatory auxin trainings (this is our second consecutive year to include 2,4-D Choline in the annual Auxin Training). The 1 hour training will educate applicators on the requirements and practices for keeping these auxin herbicides on-target, and will satisfy the updated auxin herbicide specific training requirements.

Again in 2020, dicamba technology herbicide applications will be limited to certified applicators only.

In contrast to the dicamba technology products, the Enlist products can be sold to and used by certified applicators or those working under the supervision of a certified applicator.

The training is not required for those using range and pasture labeled dicamba and/or 2,4-D products.  The Auxin Specific Herbicide training is an annual training.  Completion of the annual Auxin training is not required to purchase seed or chemistry, it is only required annually, prior to applying Engenia®, Xtendimax®, Fexapan®, Tavium®,EnlistOne® and/or EnlistDuo®  herbicides.

The Wharton and Matagorda County Extension Offices have arranged a series of dates, times and locations for the Extension Auxin trainings.  Pick a date and time that is conducive to your schedule:

Each program will be one hour long and will provide one (1) Texas Department of Agriculture laws and regulations continuing education unit (CEU) and will meet the annual Auxin training requirement for 2020.  An applicator or operator must attend only one of these available trainings in 2020.  We recently reached 135 pesticide applicators at the Feed Grain and Cotton Conference with the required Auxin training, however, there will be more cotton and soybean producers who will need to complete this annual training.  Therefore, we’re providing these eight trainings through April 23rd.  We’ll continue to provide these trainings through the growing season as needed .  A flyer for this series of Auxin Trainings can be found at http://wharton.agrilife.org  For any questions regarding the Auxin trainings, contact Corrie Bowen at 979-532-3310 or Aaron Sumrall at 979-245-4100.

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Corrie P. Bowen
County Extension Agent – Agriculture & Natural Resources
Wharton County
979-532-3310
cbowen@ag.tamu.edu