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Soybean seedling diseases are a major yield-reducing factor in soybean production. In 2017 alone, it was estimated that over 50 million bushels of grain were lost in the U.S. as a result of seedling diseases, and nearly 2 million bushels were lost in Ontario, Canada. As weather patterns — such as the one much of grain belt experienced in summer 2019 — continue to become more variable, the potential for soybean seedling diseases will continue to increase.

Register for the University of Iowa Biomass Fuel Project Update Meeting! 

Friday December 13^th @ 10-11:30AM (public meeting)

Linn County Extension Office

383 Collins Road NE

Cedar Rapids, IA 52402

Includes updates from UI team members, project partners (ISU and AGgrow Tech) and current project growers. 

Register Here 

Update Note: This was first published November 13, 2019. As of November 19, 2019 we are expecting a few days of warm weather; dewpoints will get above freezing. It would be counterproductive to keep the fans on during this period.

The Crop Protection Network (CPN) recently launched its new “Field Crop Disease Loss Calculator” research tool, complete with years of historical data for estimated losses caused by disease in corn and soybeans in the U.S. and Ontario, Canada. The calculator sources annual disease loss estimates from university experts, coupled with data from the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS), and can be sorted by state, U.S.

Waterhemp’s rise to the Cornbelt’s worst weed is one of the Cornbelt’s more fascinating weed-related events over the past 40 years.  Waterhemp (Amaranthus tuberculatus) is native to the United States but is a relative newcomer to crop fields. Prior to waterhemp’s ascent, redroot pigweed (A. retroflexus) and smooth pigweed (A. hybridus) were the pigweed species most commonly found in crop fields.

As fields get harvested many farmers are making fall manure applications. Managed properly, manure can be an excellent source of valuable nutrients, but it can also pose risks to water quality when applied long before a crop is present to take up the nitrogen provided by manure.

The meteorological winter (December-January-February) temperature and precipitation outlooks were recently released by NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center (CPC). In winter, the phase of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate signal typically influences temperature and precipitation behavior. The neutral phase of ENSO is currently in place and hence in the absence of an El Niño or La Niña, long-term climatology and recent trends become the dominant seasonal predictor.

With a growing number of cover crop acres across the state of Iowa, some producers are looking to cover crops to help extend their grazing season. While cover crops have the potential to be an extra forage source and reduce feed costs, there are challenges with using cover crops as a forage source.

Recent reports have Iowa corn at about 40% harvested and Iowa soybeans about 66% harvested. The late crop has corn moistures running from around 19% in central and western Iowa to 25% and above in northern and northeast Iowa. Due to the later planting and current weather conditions, crops are drying slower in the field.

You may be in the thick of harvest, but don’t forget to cool stored grain. With forecast average day/night temperatures of 35 to 40 in the coming ten days, the time is right to cool any grain that went into the bin at higher temperatures. This article will review some tips and rules of thumb for cooling and storing grain through the winter.

Tips for cooling grain

It doesn’t happen every year, but it does occur – snow accumulation before harvest is complete. Here are some considerations and tips for dealing with this unique situation:

Did insects bug you and your crops this year? As the 2019 growing season winds down, ISU Extension field agronomists are seeking information from producers and retailers across the state regarding what the most problematic insect pests were this growing season.

Give us your input

Temperatures fell into the low 30’s and upper 20’s in most of Iowa over the weekend of October 11-13.  Because of the very late planting season, some crops were immature enough to be injured by the freezing temperatures. This ICM Blog will address frost damage concerns to soybeans.  

Frost normally forms early in the morning, driven by radiation cooling especially on clear cold nights.  The visual impact of the frost damage is most evident the next day (Figure 1).

Iowa State University Extension Plant Pathologist Daren Mueller will be featured on a North Central Climate Collaborative (NC3) webinar later this month. The focal point of the discussion will be around how climate change is impacting disease expression in both corn and soybean in the North Central region, and how disease management will have to adjust going forward.

The webinar will be held on Monday, October 28, 2019, from 1 p.m. - 2 p.m. CT.

The weather forecast is calling for temperatures to dip below or close to freezing this weekend across the state of Iowa. What does this mean for forage crops, particularly forage crops such as sudangrass, sorghum,  and sorghum sudangrass hybrids?

How late can you make the last cutting of alfalfa? Do you cut now or wait until a killing frost? This ICM Blog will provide some guidelines to help you determine when you should make that last cutting and other management considerations when taking the last cutting for the year.

Rule of Thumb

An Iowa farmer sent me an email in anticipation of the freeze this weekend and I suspect many farmers are in the similar position of having mature crops with replant that may not be mature yet. Read more about my thoughts on how to handle this situation below.

Question:

Harvest is off to a slow start across the state. High moisture grain, crop maturity, and ear rots and stalk rots are some of the topics ISU Extension and Outreach field agronomists have been focusing on. Read on for more about what’s happening in specific regions of the state.

Northwest Iowa

A portion of Iowa’s corn crop is likely to experience a frost before naturally reaching maturity as a result of cool temperatures later this week. Natural maturity is often determined when a black layer is formed at the kernel tip. At this timeframe grain moisture is typically 28–35% moisture. If a frost or freeze occurs a black layer can still form, however, grain moisture will be greater than 35%.

Proper planning and preparation are needed to successfully improve pastures with either late winter frost seeding or no-till renovation with interseeding next spring. This ICM Blog post will discuss what you should be doing now to prepare for pasture renovations in 2020.