The Crop Protection Network (CPN; www.cropprotectionnetwork.org) is a working group made up of state university and provincial Extension specialists, and public/private professionals. This group produces collaborative Extension outputs for farmers and other agribusiness personnel. To date, extension plant pathologists from over 20 states and Ontario, Canada have contributed to the resources on the CPN website (Fig. 1).
Figure 1. The Crop Protection Network website houses new Extension field crop disease resources. www.cropprotectionnetwork.org
Currently there are 24 publications on corn and soybean diseases available on the CPN website (CropProtectionNetwork.org), including a series on how to manage corn ear rots that was released in 2016. The website includes full length publications on important diseases, scouting cards to aid in field-based disease diagnosis, one-page factsheets that address hot topics in field crop diseases, and annual corn disease loss estimates for the United States and Canada (Fig. 2).
Figure 2. Examples of publications available on www.cropprotectionnetwork.org
Publications focus on how to identify and manage diseases, as well as a including information on other diseases that can confuse diagnosis. These resources are updated frequently to incorporate the latest research-based information on disease management. The website (www.cropprotectionnetwork.org) is also mobile friendly to allow publications to be viewed on the go and in the field. More publications are coming soon, so please check back regularly to see what’s new!
We thank the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), the North Central Soybean Research Program (NCSRP), the United Soybean Board (USB), and the Grain Farmers of Ontario (GFO), for their support of the CPN.
Daren Mueller Professor
Daren Mueller is an associate professor and extension plant pathologist at Iowa State University. He is also the coordinator of the Iowa State Integrated Pest Management (IPM) program. Daren received his bachelor's degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1996, and his master's degree a...