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Strong storms rolled across the state again bringing more heavy rain and even some damaging wind to areas. Despite the flooding in some areas and drought in the southern part of the state, 78% of the corn crop and 76% of the soybean crop was rated in the good to excellent condition based on Monday’s USDA Crop Progress Report. Iowa State University Extension and Outreach field agronomists share what they are seeing in fields across the state.  

The saga continues with areas of northern Iowa receiving too much rain while southern Iowa continues to be on the drier side. Rainfall totals across the state ranged anywhere from nearly 10 inches in NW Iowa to less than half an inch in parts of southern Iowa. According to Monday’s USDA Crop Progress Report, 81% of Iowa’s corn crop and 79% of Iowa’s soybean crop is rated in the good to excellent condition.

Parts of Iowa received some much needed rainfall last week, but unfortunately for some areas the storms that rolled through also brought along hail and caused flooding. Overall, crops are looking good across the state with 84% of the Iowa corn crop and 80% of the soybeans crop being rated in the good to excellent condition based on Monday’s USDA Crop Progress Report. Iowa State University Extension and Outreach field agronomists report crop conditions in their respected regions.  

This week, I’ve had a number of people tell me they spotted Japanese beetle. I was initially surprised, because I track degree days to predict adult emergence every summer and it seemed a bit early. According to the ISU Agronomy Mesonet, adults could be emerging in southern Iowa and I would expect adult emergence in central Iowa next week. See my recent ICM News article showing a degree-day map for 2018.

While parts of Iowa are too wet and have experienced hail, wind, and flooding over the past week other parts of the state could desperately benefit from some rainfall. Despite the drastic differences in moisture levels across the state, according to Monday’s USDA Crop Progress Report, approximately 81% of Iowa’s corn crop was rated in the good to excellent condition and 78% of the soybean crop was rated in the good to excellent condition.

Over the last week there have been sightings of twisted whorls and buggy whipping or corn leaves. It’s also known as rapid growth syndrome, accelerated growth syndrome, roping, wrapped whorls, and onion leafing, This is not unusual for corn that is growing rapidly and usually occurs in 5^th to 7^th leaf corn but can also occur as late as 12^th leaf corn.

Despite the late start to #Plant18, especially in northern Iowa, planting has nearly wrapped up with corn and soybeans across the state. According to Monday’s USDA Crop Progress Report, approximately 91% of Iowa’s corn crop has emerged with 81% of the corn being rated in the good to excellent condition. On the soybean side, approximately 72% of the soybean crop has emerged with 80% being rated good to excellent and 20% being rated poor to fair.

The Iowa State University Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program is proud to announce the creation of its own YouTube Channel through which to promote the efforts of Iowa State University scientists and researchers in providing means-tested crop and pest management solutions to stakeholders in the state of Iowa and beyond.

While #Plant18 has basically wrapped up in the southern part of the state for corn and soybeans are about three-fourths planted, #Plant18 has been much slower in the northern part of the state. According to Monday’s USDA Crop Progress Report, approximately 86% of Iowa’s expected corn crop has been planted and 53% has emerged, and on the soybean side, 58% of the expected crop is planted and 18% is emerged.

Cool conditions during planting season increase the potential for herbicide injury to seedlings due to slow emergence and reduced ability of the crop to metabolize herbicides. While herbicides may be responsible for emergence issues, most problems that have been brought to our attention seem to be primarily due to the environmental conditions rather than the herbicide.

Planting conditions in northern Iowa, especially north of highway 20, is experiencing delays due to abundant rainfall. Corn planting progress is currently at 40% across the northern crop reporting districts compared to 65% and 70% for the state and 5-year average (USDA-NASS). Soybean planting progress is at 13% across the northern crop reporting districts compared to 33% and 28% for the state and 5-year average.

#Plant18 continues to progress across the state. According to Monday’s USDA Crop Progress Report, approximately 40% of Iowa’s expected corn crop has been planted and 11% of the expected soybean crop. Due to the wet weather across the state last week, #Plant18 and other field activities were put on hold as many farmers only had 2.9 suitable days for fieldwork.

Over the weekend, someone let me know they saw a western corn rootworm adult. Remember this pest overwinters as an egg that hatches in June! They get confused with closely-related species every spring: striped cucumber beetle. Striped and spotted cucumber beetles overwinter as adults and become active when spring temperatures warm up. Most scouts are able to distinguish northern corn rootworm and southern corn rootworm (also known as spotted cucumber beetle) fairly easily.

It has been a slow start to #Plant18 in Iowa. The cooler and wet weather has kept many farmers out of the fields despite the fact that it is getting to be the end of April. Spring finally seems to have arrived (or at least for parts of Iowa), and with that farmers are not wasting anytime getting to spring field activities.

The 29th David W. Staniforth Memorial Lecture was presented by Dr. Fred Gould on April 3rd.  The lecture was titled "Will Genetically Engineered Pests Protect Health, Biodiversity, and Crop Production?".  Dr.

Green cover crop fields are slowly starting to appear across the state. Despite the recent snow that fell across the state, #plant18 is right around the corner. Farmers should have a game plan in place for how they plan to terminate their overwintering cover crop. Killing cover crops with a herbicide is the most common termination method. However, the effectiveness of herbicides at terminating a cover crop depends primarily on three things: 

It is important to keep stored grain cool as we go into the spring and summer months.  Some warming of stored grain may have already occurred during warmer weather and with the sun shining on the south side of grain bins.

With the weather forecast for Friday through next Tuesday to have highs in the 30s and low 40s with lows in the 20s, this may be the last good time to completely aerate your stored grain before warmer spring weather arrives.

Insecticide-resistant soybean aphids have emerged as a new challenge to farmers throughout the upper Midwest. In a new regional publication, we suggest strategies for managing soybean aphids resistant to pyrethroid insecticides. A few key points for managing aphids are: 

Pest resistance is a world-wide challenge from hospitals to farm fields. I recently spent several days in the hospital battling an internal bacterial infection, which required intravenous antibiotics. I noted that the medical staff:

A collection of educational resources to help people on farms, orchards, forests, and other agricultural establishments comply with EPA’s revised Worker Protection Standard (WPS) regulation is now available online at http://pesticideresources.org/wps. The WPS Compliance Assistance Library provides a decision tree to help people determine their responsibilities, if any, under the WPS regulation.