An herbicide widely used to grow rice in Asia will now be used by an Arizona grower, after receiving federal approval late last month.

Keith Holmes is a product manager with Gowan Company in Yuma and said without weed control, crop loss can be 50-90 percent in a season.

“What happens is, over time,  if you use the same way to kill the weeds, you select for weeds that are tolerant to that mode of action. And what has happened in California over the years is that one of the main modes of action no longer works,” Holmes said.

The Environmental Protection Agency gave approval to Gowan Company to use its product, Butte, on rice in California. U.S. growers plant about 3 million acres of rice each year across only six states, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. California is the only Western state to grow the crop.