Sarah, welcome back to the war against weeds podcast. This is Sarah Lancaster, extension weed management specialist at Kansas State University. The co host for this episode is the good doctor Joseph Ikley, howdy, Joe.
Hello!
and our guest today is Roger Batts, so I've known Roger since my master's program at NC State, more years ago than either of us would probably care to mention. But that's not why we invited Roger on today. So today, Roger is going to talk to us a little bit about the IR-4 program. So thanks for joining us, Roger.
I appreciate you inviting me great to be here. So
going to start off with an easy Well, yeah, I we're think it's an easy question. Tell us about your role with the IR-4 program and kind of how you came to be in that position.
Yes ma'am, I'm currently the Weed Science biologist at IR-4 headquarters. Headquarters is in Raleigh. After many, many years in at Rutgers University, it's moved to Raleigh now at NC State. And when that happened, I was asked if I'd like to do this biology work from my headquarters position, because I had done residue work under the IR-4
program at NC State for about 20 years before that. So it's a little bit different, but it's sort of back to where I was, because I have done a lot of field plot work, spraying the screening of herbicides in the past and lots of crops. So that's what I do now. I coordinate projects across the country for Weed Science.
So you've kind of gone from putting out the plots trials to analyzing pesticide residues, or talk a little bit more about that residue piece of your your work background?
Oh, sure, well, not analyzing residue, but doing residue work is a little bit is different than your regular multi plot, multi rep screening programs that most extension people are familiar with. It's it's not as large, but it is just, it can be just as complex, because I like to tell people with a story that one of the first trials I ever sprayed
residue wise, I sprayed for a total of 88 seconds. But because of the need for all the the paper trail that's required for GLP or residue work, it took me three hours that day to do the plots, even though I only sprayed for 88 total seconds. So including, you know, lots of specific maps, you got to make sure that you got all your records in line before you submit your final report. And it's it can be cumbersome the
GLP world. Yes, ma'am, but I did that for about 20 years for our four before moving over.
So just maybe I was
gonna say maybe it's good time to hit a pause and do a little acronym update here. Yeah, sure. Maybe we'll start with GLP, and then IR-4 itself, sure.
Well, IR-4 stands for the inter regional research project number four. USDA created this project in 1963 so it's older than I am, not very much older, but a little bit older. Basically, it was created because the the State Extension, ag extension specialist at different states realized that the tool boxes for specialty crops weren't as deep as those for row crops, and it's because the economic incentive is not there for a registrant to try to chase individual registrations
for each specialty crop. So USDA set up this program so we will perform some of the research needed to get a registration in exchange for the registrant promise to put it on the label if we do so in original research project number four, and as far as GLP, that goes back to the residue world itself good
laboratory practices that became in the late 80s. It became actually a law where you had to do all the background and paperwork to make sure everything is traceable and documented properly so that the research could be reproduced if needed, and also it helps sort of standardize the research across different places, so that if I'm doing it in Georgia, I'm doing it in Virginia, or I'm doing it in North Dakota, the research is done similarly, so that the residue levels come out
similarly, and it makes an easier decision at EPA when they review the data. So good laboratory practices is what it's called.
Perfect, I just want to make sure everyone listening is all on the same page as we are.
Yeah, that's where I was headed to Joe. So I guess we've done this long enough.
Scary.
Yeah for you. all right. So. I think we've got kind of the background covered. And so Roger, you defined IR-4 and talked a little bit about, kind of how you came into being. So in here, in 2025 what are the goals of the IR-4 project?
Basically it's because of that lack of we don't have a deep, specialty crops. Don't have deep tool boxes for pest management. So we have, we can do all the disciplines, Weed Science, entomology, pathology. We basically are there to run the residue studies to get these tolerances, or MRLs, maximum residue levels. Those MRLs get established before you have before you can put a thing, put a product on a label or put a crop on a label. So that's what we're basically charged with.
Now the biologist side that I do, sometimes a registrant will say, Well, before we get started on that, we need a little more comfortable. We need to be more comfortable with the efficacy and crop safety of our product in that crop or on that pest. Or sometimes we'll do it simultaneously. They'll say we feel comfortable, but give us a little bit more background data so we can write an appropriate label at the end. So I guess I
sort of went tangent on you there. But yes, we it's the IR-4 program was designed to get these residue levels established so the MRLs could get published in the Federal Registry. The biologist side helps support that with efficacy and crop safety data.
So you approach it from from both sides then.
When we have to in a perfect world, the registrar will already be comfortable, and they'll say, Just go do the residue work, and we'll be fine. But sometimes we have to support it with some more efficacy and crop safety. Yes, ma'am,
okay. And so you kind of started us down this, this path, Roger. But what's the relationship like between IR, the IR-4 program, and a registrant? Like, how do you guys interact from kind of beginning to end of the process? Sure.
Well, it all. Everything is triggered by a request that comes in from our stakeholders. And we get requests for from from growers and commodity growers associations. We get requests coming in from extension specialists and and university researchers. We can basically accept requests from anybody but a registrant employee. That's sort of, you know, that will be conflict of interest on on our
part. But those requests come in and the first thing we do as far as interacting with the registrant is, if the product, if the request comes in and involves a product that would that registrant owns, we send that request to them and say, Would you support this if it became part of the IR-4 priority list in a certain year, and would you put it on the label,
if they say no, of course, everything stops right then. But if they say yes, then the process starts those projects that they say yes to go into our big database, and then every year, in September through a series of of whittling down, I guess you'd call it, through a series of of eliminations and meetings, we find out which ones are the most pressing needs in our September food use workshop. We call it, and those go into
our following year's research plan. Now, during all this, also, we have regularly scheduled the group of IR-4 will travel or the registrant may come to us, where we meet with registrants every year and discuss either ongoing projects, new potential projects, or things that may have already gone through EPA, and we're just checking up on Hey, is it on a label yet, so that we can follow up and go all the way through
the process with them. So our annual meetings with these registrant is important to us, but the really kickoff thing is right there at the beginning, when when a request comes in, we send that forward to the registrant and they tell us yes or no, whether or not they will be willing to support that use.
So I'm not asking you to, like, name names or anything, but like, how often do you get a no? Like, what percentage actually move forward? Does that make sense?
Well sometimes we say no ourselves. When it comes in, we vet the request first. And if it's something like, you know, we want to see if roundup works over the top of a soybean of a non GMO snap bean. Well, we go right then and go back to the requester and say, Well, this one probably not going to work. And we also have, you know, you also have to identify the requester to make sure they are, you know, qualified to make
these requests. Sometimes, you know, we get things that, I guess you won't, don't want to say Russian hackers, but sometimes we get people playing in our websites that we we really have to vet these things first. As far as registrants saying no, it depends on. Most of the time they will say yes. A lot of times they say yes, but you know, we'll need some more supporting data, or we make sure you know, all the supporting data we see so far is on muck soils. We need some more mineral
soils before we're willing to expand the label for you. So we get some yeses, we get some yeses, buts, and then sometimes they know that their product may be in a regulatory bind at EPA, and they'll just say, No, we're not moving forward from that one. So if you want to press me on a percentage, maybe 65 70% or a yes, go forward, something like that. Yeah,
the other question that came to mind when you were talking about that Roger is when you provide all the data to the EPA, you're going back to make sure that it's on the label. You're checking that full federal label, right? This is part of that section three, label, not like a special local needs or anything like that, right? This is a full label?
Not necessarily, if they they will tell us. Sometimes, some registrants choose 24 C's, especially, especially in specialty crops. They, they, they're a little bit more cautious with their with their labeling. Sometimes it is a section three. They'll say, yes, it's on the section three
label. Sometimes in our database, we will have to go back and document that particular project as use registered, not nationally, because it will be in certain states under 20 4c labels not it really isn't section three so it varies. Yeah.
Any questions on your end, Joe,
oh, plenty, but I'm also a state full of what may categorize a specialty crops, according to some registrants, so I'll continue to digest a few questions into more palatable form.
Okay, so that is a good question.
we get that asked a lot. What is the specialty crop? And under the latest farm bill, specialty crops are basically fruits, vegetables, tree, tree, nuts, herbs and spices, consumable things as well as environmental or what we call the environmental horticultural crops, or ornamental horticultural crops, landscapes, nursery crops like that. We also work in those crops which basically we just have to prove
efficacy and crop safety. In there. We don't have to worry about a residue number, because it's nothing that's going to be in end up being consumed. So, so that is basically just screening, sending the data to a registrant, proving that it is safe or not safe, and then they make the choice on putting it on a label or not. So our environmental hort side, as far
as scoreboard, is a whole lot more successful. I think we've over the years, we may have gotten 60 to 65,000 approvals through an environmental Hort, where, on our food side, we're somewhere 25 to 23,000 or 25,000 since 1963 now that does not mean all of them are still in place, because products get removed from the market, registrations get canceled, things like that. But that's sort of the scoreboard since our beginning.
Yeah. So, so Sarah, for example, I'm sitting here thinking, corn, soybean, small grain that. That's what we kind of call our major crops, but then the other 20 some that we might grow on a regular basis. I mean, here's a foot and mouth movement. I was in Saskatoon last week and called canola minor crop like, oh, I shouldn't be calling that a minor crop up here, but that's how we have to categorize it, so that edible legumes are a big one for us, and we even have things like
onions on mineral soil. Maybe, maybe one of the things Roger was referring to, of muck versus mineral soils earlier. So we can grow 20 to 30 different crops, and most of them, we might be working with IR-4 to try and get some additional registration. So if we sit here, I can ask questions all day.
Now, you mentioned canola. Canola is actually one of those where we have to it's more than the typical 300,000 acres that people consider a minor crop, but we are allowed to work on it because it has now been classified as a specialty
crop. But in order for and let me go back to one of the privileges of working with IR-4, or one of the advantages to work in IR-4 is that, since we are the government, generating government data for the government, our submissions to EPA are generally we don't have to worry about these PRIA fees that are registrant would when they send a packet a petition to
EPA. So if we get those PRIA fees waived, except when. You get that, that little thing about if it's above 300,000 acres, we have to have a little bit more justification behind our petition, some weight of the evidence, we call it, and EPA lines out those weight of the evidence items that we must check box in order for that to also get our PRIA fee waiver,
waived, waived, waiver exempt. That is one of the advantage through IR-4, is that the PRIA fees that registrants generally have to pay if it comes to IR-4 for a specialty crop use, we don't have to pay those fees. So there have been years where and we keep up with this. I think last year, our registrant PRIA fee savings was like between four and $5 million we have had.
I think our record year is like a little bit short of $7 million in PREA fee savings that IR-4 has been able to save in order for our projects to go through EPA versus what it would have cost from registrar. So registrars like to do that. It's a win win. It's actually it's a win win win. Because the more crop we protect, the more the consumer benefits. Because there's more on the grocery store shelves, prices are lower. You don't have to spend as much as your take home income for
food in the US, as you will other places. So.
So I'm curious, in the case of like, a canola or dry beans or something that's maybe a little larger acre than some of the others, what are those things that you have to to demonstrate, to justify kind of having it under the umbrella of IR-4.
I thought you might ask me that the weight of the evidence list, I've been exposed to it, but basically our the regular the registration team, you know, the the residue side of IR-4 they deal with those questions and answering those questions, I it may be things like, will it be registered in the US first or or there's no other options if we don't get
this tool, there are no other options available. Sort of a validation of why we did it, like type stuff, but the specifics, or I may not know all those so I better not say
it sounds a lot like the things that we talk about when we help with 20 4c labels at the state level, like, Why? Why should we approve this if there's already something else, if
there's nothing there, it's reached a critical this pest is a rich crisis level, Section 18. The same way you've got to prove, you got to show how much of a crisis it is in order for a department to grant it to you. I understand.
I know a specific example recently, the tribe around label. From a pre plant perspective, we have reduced the crop rotation interval to some of our minor crops, or low, low acreage crops. Maybe we'll call it that. And you know, that's to expand our weed control potential pre plant but maybe a different example of a product that's been around for a while, but just trying to tighten up some of those pre plant intervals, I guess. Yeah. Oh, the
rotational intervals. Yes, yes, we, we've got some projects going on right now for that, that very reason, it also, you know one thing, it allows you to control the weeds without having to skip an entire year before you get into that.
If you, if you have to skip an entire year after using it, you may have to put a lower value crop in where, if we shorten that interval, the grower can come back the very next year and have a more profitable crop on that land, as well as was, well as resistance management, maintaining weed control in your rotation. Crop is very important for specialty crops, because, like I said, the tool boxes are shallow to start with. It. Those reduction of the rotational intervals is the very valuable
thing. We've gotten quite a bit of interest in that we I know I've written a couple of protocols in the last two, three years, multiple crops involved, just to get the data to the registrant so that they can reduce those intervals. Yeah, good examples.
So, Joe, you made a comment earlier. That kind of alludes to the next direction I thought we'd take the the discussion, and that is, Roger, how do you interact with academics? So, you know, how do you work with Joe in North Dakota, or, you know, our counterparts in other places, sure.
Basically, my interaction will start once a project does get a priority and I start developing a protocol. I know, I know lots of researchers across the country who say, Oh, this. I know they work in that crop, so I lean on them. For advice on All right, what kind of rates do you see? What kind of soils do you have where I can check the label and make sure that the rate that I assign in a project in your area is appropriate? They also are often calling me and saying, does any?
Has anyone submitted a request for x in crop y, and I can help them with that. And then they'll tell me why, and then I'll say, well, yes or no, and if there's not, I can help them, you know, with their submission to IR-4, and let it, let it come in through a regular submission pathway. That's the biggest thing, is that I've worked with so many of them for so long, that I know who to lean on as far as advice and interaction with our and I know maybe they even worked on the this
particular product in this particular crop. So that's that's the big, the biggest interaction I have. Another thing is that a lot of them will come to our our September meet, our food use workshop, and they will stand up for things that are very important for their their growers and their regions at our state. So that's, well, that's where I get a lot of interaction with them as well. So is the coolest discipline? So, yeah, they're the coolest
people. Anyway, people in the room with Weed Science.
Well, obviously, yeah, I was going to ask, Is it like a so I don't know this is an official thing or just something that we've done, but we have Brian Jenks up here as our IR-4 liaison, at least for Weed Science, because I'm in the heart of the corn, soybean, kind of wheat of the state, but we want to talk lentils or chickpeas. Brian's in the heart of that, and then he's got years of experience, so he's the
obvious choice for us. But we also have fungicides, insecticides, and so does it look kind of like one liaison per state, per pesticide, or does it differ? Did we just kind of default to let Brian handle because he's going to give the right answers. Generally,
the liaison, the state liaisons under the IFO program, uh, represent all the disciplines they it's their job in their just in their little job description that we assign to them is their job to identify the needs in all the disciplines and bring them forward to IR-4, either at that September meeting or through other regional meetings where they can sort of narrow down the most pressing needs before they come to the September meeting. That's what liaisons basically cover all the disciplines.
And then when every single state and even like territories have a liaison. Or how does that work?
Yeah. Well, yeah, we do. We've got an IR-4 liaison in every state. Some are very active. Some are not active. I
mean, some of them are not active for obvious reasons. You know, there may not be that many specialty crops in the state, or they may be fill it up with houses, you know, but we do have a liaison for every state, even even in some of the northeastern states, where there's not a lot of food crop production, there may be a lot of landscape and ornamental production, so we do have A liaison that'll handle questions for those as well.
So go ahead, Jim. I'm just going off
on a tangent here, but I was just thinking, so what does that look like when you have a Kansas liaison versus a California one? Just kind of the, you know, the acreage or percentage of what might be crops falling under the RF four program on one state versus the other. It's, I'm sure it's a balancing act you guys have figured out by now, but I'm just curious,
a need is a need? Well, if it's, if it's a high need in watermelons in Kansas and and a high need in watermelons in California, that helps, because when we're at our
meeting, the more different regions. In order for states that feel the same way and give it a high priority, an a priority is we go with the ABC system, basically in our meeting, if they both feel it needs an A, it gets an A. And if, if Kansas watermelon growers are there and they speak up loud enough, then it might overshadow a California safflower request, because it's the room may feel that the need is more for the
Kansas watermelons. So again, state cooperation, regional cooperation, the you know, the more, the more you get involved with the same project, the better chance it has in making the final list. So
you've talked about this list and ranking priorities. Do you aim to have so many like ABC or high, medium, low priorities each year?
We basically get limited or to, well, we try to, we will. Calculate that based on our NIFA funding. Yeah, and in the past few years, basically, we've been somewhere prioritizing 35 to 45 as in the fall of for our next year's projects. When I first started with if for that number, because it wasn't as expensive to conduct research as it is now,
inputs weren't as high. That, combined with the relatively fat, flat funding that we have had at IR-4 for a decade or so now, means that we don't get to do 60 or 65 projects that I was familiar with when I first started with our four. We're down into 30 fives and 40 fives now, because of the cost it takes to do it and the flat funding,
how does the number of new active ingredients play into that decrease? Or does it?
Well, I don't know if you can really say new active ingredients and Weed Science in the same medium. That's my point.
Just the lack of new AIS, is that part of what's making that number,
the joke I make sometimes is that weed science and specialty crops is like taking 1950s television and vacuum tubes and trying to fit them in flat screen plasma televisions. We're trying to make things fit old things fit into the new systems. That's basically where we are with herbicides and specialty crops. When you look at our list every fall, you'll see that a lot of the products that are moving
forward into next year's research are old products. I mean, I think last year we prioritized, last year we started, I think 20 or 21 residue studies in Weed Science, and four of them were linuronn and three of them were s-metholachlor, you know, so we are, we're just Trying. We're trying to make things fit old products fit into the new technologies where we can be great if we had some more new modes of action, developed and exciting stuff. But that's the
way it is, especially crops. Yep, it's not like that in fungicides and insecticides, they they come up with something new, and it is. It's brand new. Weed Science is a little different.
Yeah, that's a whole nother line of questions for another day. Why those things are so different right now? Um,
interrupt you again. But, um, another aspect of that is with the ESA the Endangered Species Act stuff with EPA right now, they have told us that are the first the first thing they're going to try to conquer, or things they're getting sued over, the next thing they're going to attack are brand new molecules. And after that they're going to tackle the they move things along for new uses, for existing products. Well, that's where herbicides, especially crop,
that's where we play, that's where we live. So it's sort of down the pecking order a little bit right now.
Okay, so what does that do for, like, timelines to see the process through? So if I were to call and say, My pumpkin growers want product X today, can we start on this? We're going to collect the data. I'm assuming that's a two or three year process,
it is, and then you have
any like predictions for how long after that, growers should actually see a
label where, in the past, before, before we started seeing a little slowdown at EPA we could rely on, and they've told us, keep submitting, so we still submit. But in the past, we would, once it's through the door and they reviewed it for that initial screen they'll use. They usually set that pre a date about 15 months out, they'll say, all right, 15 months you ought to have your MRL decision made, and then, then it's a
matter of the registrant. You know, once you get an MRL, the registrant may do it in three weeks, or it may take a year and a half when they decide to print the label next time. But for the for the EPA, used to be about 15 months in the door, and then it started becoming 18 months, and then it became 20 months and 24 and so it's the pre a dates now are pretty much estimates instead of deadlines, because of all the other things that are
going on at the agency. So it has slowed down. And I think as far as I for, as far as I can, I can see it, it will, it will slow down the timelines on projects that we work on and submit, yes, ma'am,
so instead of being I'm just trying to get my head around it. So instead of being like a four year process from start to finish, it's going to become like a six year process.
It could Yes. Ma'am, okay, we let we generally like to think. We prioritize it in the fall. So we sign a protocol in the spring, give it one year in the field, one year in the lab, and then a half a year to write up and submit. So we'd like to say from the time we sign a protocol to to to writing it up, ready to submit, is like two and a half years of I or four handling it sometimes that doesn't work, because
trials may fail. We may have problems in the lab with getting the method validated and worked out in the lab properly, but 30 months is our is our goal for signing a protocol to being ready to submit, so two and a half years, and then you add on the the EPA timeline. Now you're right. It could be five, six years from the time we start, to the time it gets the label.
So random, tangential question, who runs all the actual residue analyzes? What lab does that,
we have a couple of labs inside the IR-4 network at
universities. We've got one at University of Florida and one at UC Davis, and we will also use contract labs to do things that's a little more expensive, but it helps keep things moving along faster, instead of creating backlogs at our IR-4 four labs, years ago, we had four labs, Cornell, Michigan, state, Florida and UC Davis, and again, with flat line budgets, with cost increasing everywhere, especially for some of that lab equipment, we Were down to two labs inside the network and
using contract labs otherwise.
Roger, do you think we need to go any more kind of step by step, chronologically through the process of like the product you've talked about? The stakeholder makes the request, you prioritize it, you write a protocol, then you gather all the data and ship it out to the EPA, and then the EPA says yay or nay, and then the registrant is responsible for printing the labels. Is there anything else in that process that we've not touched on, or did I totally screw up that process?
That's very good umbrella now, but there's, there are lots of many steps, many smaller steps involved in all those steps. But I don't know how in depth you'd like to get Now, if we want to back up to the before, the prioritization, before it gets the right, the priority to work, we can, we? We
will have our regional offices. We have four regional offices, ones that University of Maryland, Eastern Shore, ones at University of Florida, ones in Michigan State, ones at UC Davis, throughout the spring and summer each year, they will be meeting with their stakeholders as regional meetings to set their little regional priorities so that they can bring those forward at the National Meeting and sort of negotiate between
regions. Sometimes they're the very same one. You know that it could be the herbicide X in tomatoes may be important of all four regions. But if it's not, then sometimes it's like, well, my, my, my request for tomato might, might mean more than your
request in the South for sweet potatoes. And so there's a lot of give and take, a lot of negotiation, and some of that boils down to also whether or not the particular product is something the EPA says is a sort of a green light, or whether that product is a yellow, which means a few, there's some cautionary about that, or whether it's an orange, which means don't necessarily stop it, but there may be some
significant hurdles. It has to travel. But if EPA tells us red then that that will probably put the stop on, on the momentum of a project. So
I'm a little curious about this, this ranking process. Do you guys like bring the data and say this is the dollar value to my region? These are the acres. Is there a little bit of like, politicking, not so much in the negative sense, but like you said, negotiating, like we'll do this this year and yours next year. Or if you help me with this, I'll help you with that. Like, are those the kinds of conversations happening?
I think that's more representative, rather than someone screaming out, well, 75% control, well, that we're going to get 90% control and over there, instead of the data, it's more of the need, basically, the crypt, how critical it is for our crop. So it is, it is sort of squeaky wheel gets to grease. It is. Sometimes we can take that instead of calling it an A, we'll move it to B, but we'll bring it back next year and try to get an. A next year, things like that happen. It's that's
getting tougher and tougher. Because, like I said, we used to be able to do 6060, or 65 A's, and now we're down to 35 to 40, those negotiations and those discussions in the in the room of 200 or so, those discussions, sometimes are heavy. Those are some. They can get intense. They can get intense. Yes,
spirited, spirited discussions. Very good, very good.
I mean, good work. It can get spirited, but generally, we usually get it worked out for this, all said and done, we usually leave the room at a food use workshop with with our correct number.
So I don't think we cover this. But so what is kind of the current ratio of what to say, herbicide, fungicide, insecticide of the current a list,
it's running pretty, pretty close to a third some years. Herbicides may be 20% some years, they may be 40% but generally, all three disciplines generally run about
a third of the priorities each year. That was a concern several years ago, when we made this shift to we'd have a Weed Science Day, an entomology day, a pathology day, and then the final day we all got together, but now we cover them all as we go through all the disciplines together, as we go through that was a concern that one discipline might be more vocal than others, but it's worked out to be about a third actually.
Now under the Weed Science, we also take care of PGRs, so both of those, since they both, you know, handle plant processes, they they both are under the Weed Science category in our food and similarly, nematicides fall under pathology like I think that's how EPA views it also. So do
you have any other process questions? Joe, nope, so my curiosity question here, Roger, what do you think is the most you can choose interesting or impactful project that you've been part of in the IR-4 for
a specific project.
Yeah, what's something that stated like, if you were to look back at, like, the highlights of, we were to play a highlight reel of the Roger batts career, what would be some of the things that, like, you know, stick out as being important? Oh, gosh, does that make sense?
I think I know what you're asking, but I should have prepped you for that one I did. I was doing the residue work at NC State. Man ran like almost 500 residue trials over the course of those years. And I, I don't know, I don't know which one would be most impactful. Wow, that's a good question. I guess the government answer is, they were all equally important and all equally valuable to the specialty crop growers of the United States.
I sounds like an advanced,
difficult thing, but at least it was herbicide related, right? Yeah, all right, good.
I'm sorry, Sarah, that was a vague answer, but I don't know nothing sticks out. I could pull one out that really
stood out. Nothing was a particular pain in the neck. No,
there ever been some pain in the necks. Um, ginseng. They asked me to do a ginseng residue trial in the mountains of North Carolina, and this grower had been growing them in his woods for years and years, and selling the berries to a lady in Australia who was processing it into some sort of supplement, right? Well, he was about to get out of the business. And the my sample had to get roots. Had to get ginseng roots out of it. So when it came time to I sprayed the fungicide.
It came time to harvest. I'm pulling up these roots that are 30 years old, and they're they're just huge roots. Now I didn't know what what I was holding, but you had to dry them down. So we put them in these laundry band. Baskets, clean laundry baskets, take them back, dry them down in a in a room, before I could bag them up and send them to the lab. And when I sent them to the lab, the lab director said, Where did you get these roots? He said, Do you know how valuable these roots
are? And apparently, my basket full of of ginseng roots that I had pulled out and dried down were like 1215, grand because of those, the size of those ginseng roots, depending on the market you go to the like the Asian market. But she was telling me, she said, Do you know how much, how valuable these are? And I didn't know how much silver. I thought they were just ginseng roots. So that was a sort of a well back to the difficulty of
it. It rained the day we harvested them. So we're sitting in the woods and we're having to dig em up, sitting on our butts, digging them out of the ground in a clay soil is raining on us. It. It was sort of misery. You know that was, that was a memorable residue trial, yes, ma'am, that was very good.
All right. Jim, did you have any last questions? Joe,
no more popped up. But we, we kind of went past that part of it, so no point circling back around. Are you sure fire away. Pick one. All right? I mean, the one that kind of popped in my head is, and it's probably because I hadn't found the right way to phrase it, why I said move on. But so, so thinking about pesticide registrations, not just in the
US, but in international countries as well. Is there any sort of working relationship or prioritization if, if a pesticide is registered in X country, but not in the US, on a minor crop? Does that make things easier or prioritization easier? I couldn't find the right way to phrase it, but hopefully that makes enough sense. Sarah, you nodded, like you can phrase it better. Well, I
the what I'm thinking of is like, for example, if there's a product that the Canadians are using in canola, does that make it easier for North Dakota to get it? Yeah, or
Europeans using something in sunflowers because they do that that we can't use. Would that make it easier for us to get that in the US and sunflowers? Yeah, sometimes
yes, sometimes no. And that generally depends on the registrar. We've got a herbicide right now that is being a lot of my researchers are, are really demanding that, hey, we got to get it. It's registered into Europe. We got to get it here in the United States, because it's going to, it's going to fit a void, it's going to help control amaranthus and the and so, yes, that's great. It's registered already in Europe or in Australia, and the registrant says, No, we're
not bringing in the United States. So that sort of puts the kibosh on that. But as far as international cooperation, Canada actually has an IR-4 Pro, IR-4 type program, and we work very closely with them. In fact, if we both have the same priority, and we both are, they want herbicide x in garlic. We want herbicide x in garlic. Both. Both priorities. Get it.
They both get a priority. Then, instead of 15 trials in the US and seven in Canada, if we're going to submit to EPA and PMRA Pest Management Regulatory Association in Canada, which is their EPA, if we're going to submit to both of them at the same time, then we go, we both get a break. Instead of 15 and seven, it may be 10 and five. As far as number of trials that are required, because we're going to be combining that, we work very closely with the PMC Pest Management Center in Canada,
which is, which is our full program up there. We've we've worked at our meetings. We've had a lot of interest from other countries, Australia, Germany, China, Japan, Korea, some of those representatives of their miners, minor crop programs will come and see our our processes, and we work with with some of them on, you know our Well, if we could, we collaborate or share data to help get registrations internationally.
And I'll also throw out probably where I'm stepping above my head too is that there's a IR-4 because of our international need to cooperate internationally, we sort of launched a nonprofit called, excuse me, the minor use foundation. And the minor use foundation does exactly what we do on. A global scale, they will prioritize on crops. They and they'll find out, well, the US did seven trials. If we do one in Spain, one in China and one in India, we could get a global
registration. So then they'll the the minor, minor use foundation will do that kind of thing to help get more trade opportunities for the US growers that we wouldn't have gotten otherwise. So, yeah, it's sort of an international program that we've helped launch,
maybe. So the thinking there was no, sorry, the thinking there then Roger would be that you have to have that MRL in order to export it, right? And so you're just helping getting those tolerances established in potential export markets, correct.
Okay, correct. And, and there are, there are different groups of countries who form different coalitions to establish these MRL rules. You know, there's Codex. You may
have heard of Codex. And that group of countries, the minor use foundation, will say, hey, if we do, like I said, those, those examples of the added trials, could get them a codex tolerance for, you know, lots more countries than just the United States then, and since you referred to that international shipping is important to the US, of course, especially when some countries will maybe arbitrarily set an MRL instead of using some data and two of the crops that we
work With most that are influenced by international MRLS the most are sweet potatoes and hops. A good 35 to 40% of the US sweet potatoes go to Europe, where they have these arbitrary MRLS that we have to try to abide by and the same in with hops. About 40% of the hops produced in the US go to Europe, and so we have to really pay attention to the MRL and the residue levels on those crops when, whenever we're developing data in the US. Well, gotta get as many tools as we can deepen,
you know, fill the toolbox. That's, that's sort of, you know, Stanley, Stanley Culpepper, he, he was been, he's not as heavily involved anymore, because he's been distracted by all his wssa responsibilities. But for years, when he, when I would listen to him talk at the savannah vegetable meeting, he'd say, fill the toolbox. Fill the toolbox. And that's basically what I are for. We need to fill the toolbox with speciality crop growers.
That's why we need to get you our War Against Weeds toolbox Stress Ball.
well, being being indoors is very stressful, because I really love my I really love outdoor work. So being indoors is stressful. Maybe I need that.
is a perfect place to land this thing. Sometimes
Sometimes I feel like a caged animal.
Thank you Roger In the last 50 minutes with us chatting about IR-4 and the things you do to help our our specialty crop growers. So did you have any like websites or places you wanted to direct listeners to get more information?
Yes ma'am, that would be a great way. The IR-4 website is loaded with information on projects that are current, data that we've received over the years that people can look into and see what can work and what has
worked. You can go to www.ir four project.org, and IR4 has no dashes in it, even though sometimes you'll see as IR - 4 when we write it, it's ir4 project, all lowercase.org, so that will be a great place to jump into looking at what we do and what we've succeeded and how we're going to help in
the future. Awesome. Well, thanks again, Roger. It's really been a pleasure to have you on and thanks to the listeners. We'll see you guys next time. Thank you much. Thanks for listening to the war against weeds podcast. We appreciate support from the north central Integrated Pest Management Center and the collaboration with the Crop Protection Network. At crop protection network.org you can find this podcast other podcasts and a variety of other pest management resources.