Blog
For those of you that are in need of some extra Certified Crop Advisor (CCA) Continuing Education Units (CEUs), you can earn up to 9.5 total CEUs simply by visiting the Crop Protection Network (CPN), and testing your knowledge of various pest management topics, such as plant diseases and...
Staging crops is an underappreciated but incredibly important skill. One very important reason to know how to stage your crops is because herbicide products may have limits on what growth stages of the crop they can be applied. This ICM Blog will discuss staging corn and soybean as well as share...
The Forecast and Assessment of Cropping sysTemS (FACTS) webpage has been updated to include regional scale forecasts. These regional scale forecast cover the three I-states providing weather, soil water, and soil N mineralization information....
With planting (and replanting) starting to wind down, farmers are turning their attention to post herbicide applications, sidedressing, and putting up hay. Weed management challenges and thistle caterpillars in soybeans have been some of the big issues across the state this past week. Check out...
Summer has arrived, and temperatures are heating up. Agricultural and natural resource workers endure long days spent outdoors or running field days. Summer outdoor activities are in full force for many including festivals, fairs, sports, farmer’s markets and much more! Time spent outside in the...
This year I’ve had a few people ask for tips on scouting for common stalk borer. The larvae are moving from brome to corn throughout Iowa and it is a good time to scout for timely management....
Join the ISU Weed Science Program at the 2019 Herbicide Research and Demonstration Program Field Day on Thursday, June 27!
I’ve been hearing about and seeing a variety of caterpillars in seedling crops this week. In soybean, you notice thistle caterpillars feeding and making webbed cavities from the leaves. They can be easy to find in early-vegetative soybean but rarely build up to economic populations. Read more...
Miscanthus has to be harvested all at once and must be stored for later use every season. Standing miscanthus fields are harvested with a forage chopper or self-propelled mower conditioner (as previously discussed in our...
Mother Nature was more cooperative this past week, allowing planting and other field activities like cutting and putting up hay, sidedressing, and herbicide applications to occur. According to the ...
This #Plant19 season has been a tough and complicated one, filled with difficult deadlines, unconventional practices and budget constraints. And while it might be seem easier to just give up, it's seasons like these that teach us important lessons about farming, and give us the opportunity to...
#plant19 has been a year to remember, and not necessarily in a good way. A couple of days ago we talked about anthracnose leaf blight on corn. Although we...
Corn planting has been start and stop, and generally delayed this spring. In some situations the decision was made to plant and not apply nitrogen, or planting progressed so quickly that UAN (urea-ammonium nitrate solution) and herbicide applications couldn’t keep up with the planters, and now...
Mother Nature has not been a friend to farmers this spring, making the 2019 planting season a challenging one to say the least. According to the June 3, 2019...
Summer trip?! Undergraduate students commonly take trips during the summer that consists of hiking in the mountains, relaxing on the beaches, or experiencing a new culture in a foreign country. However, one group of students from Furman University in Greenville, SC broke the mold and chose...
Farmers across the state took advantage of the little dry spell that occurred last week. Approximately 70% of the expected corn crop and 27% of the soybean crop in Iowa has been planted according to the May 20...
We have always told extension clients and students that the best tool for identifying an unknown weed is a good book, other than finding somebody who already knows what the weed is. We never thought much of the early weed ID apps that were developed for mobile devices.
“Rain, rain, go away come again another day.” This nursery rhyme seems to be an appropriate theme song for how the weather has been this spring. The wet weather has been a major challenge for getting any fieldwork completed across the state. According to the most recent...
As everything greens up, we often receive photos of mystery plants for identification. Typically, I get a wide range of species via email or text message. This spring, more than any I can recall in recent history, I’ve received many photos of the same species: purslane speedwell (Veronica...
According to a recent State Federal Insecticide Fungicide and Rodenticide Act Issues Research and Evaluation Group (...
Have you been driving in rural eastern Iowa lately? You might have noticed those choppers and wagons a few weeks ago harvesting miscanthus fields, but what have you seen most recently? Planters! You might have noticed that they don’t look like the grain planters most of us are used to seeing....
The calendar may now say we are in the month of May, but it certainly doesn’t feel that way with the weather and with planting progress across Iowa.
Soil temp. Ideally we want soil temps at the 4” depth to be 50oF or warmer prior to planting corn. While we did...
This summer, I am starting a couple of new research projects looking at cover crop pest activity that might be relevant to corn production. Shout out to Alison Robertson and Mark Licht for including me on these massive research projects! The usual cover crop pest suspects are migratory moths,...
Last week planters made progress across portions of Iowa. Rains this weekend and the forecast for the coming week indicate planting will be at a standstill this week. In light of the weekend weather, soil temperatures quickly fell below 50oF. What does this mean for corn and soybean...
Like #Plant18, #Plant19 seems to be off to a slow start. Approximately 21% of the expected corn crop and 3% of the soybean crop in Iowa has been planted according to the...