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Wild parsnip is an invasive plant commonly found in roadsides, pastures, restored prairies and other areas with full sun and minimal disturbance.  It is a biennial that forms a rosette with 'celery-like leaves' (Fig. 1.) and an umbel with yellow flowers (Fig. 2).

Are you seeing yellow-ish spots showing up in your soybean fields, especially in compacted parts of the field? This could be the start of Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS). With how wet its been there year, we've had the ideal conditions for disease development. 

Foliar symptoms of SDS, which look similar to foliar symptoms of BSR.

Waterhemp continues to be a problem in parts of northwest Iowa.  There is a fair amount of waterhemp that survived the glyphosate and/or Flexstar applications in late June. 

There is also a new crop of waterhemp that has germinated recently.   That fact is surprising since it has been fairly dry in July for a lot of northwest Iowa.

Proper selection of adjuvants is essential for effective weed control with herbicides.  Unlike herbicides, adjuvants are not regulated - thus anything can be marketed for this purpose and manufacturers are not required to describe the active ingredients.  This leads to the introduction of questionable products making unrealistic claims.  The newest ruse is the promotion of products with the supposed ability to overcome glyphosate resistance.

Most agronomists are aware of the movement of Palmer amaranth into Iowa.  Although known Iowa infestations are limited to five counties (Harrison, Fremont, Page, Lee and Muscatine) we are confident that it is present in many more counties.  We are pleased by the number of people who have notified us upon encountering suspect Palmer amaranths.

Yesterday during my class at FEEL, I asked participants to go out in the corn and soybean plots and find pests. It didn’t take too long to find a few plants loaded with soybean aphid. It was the largest natural colonies I have seen this summer (potentially exciting for my research but not great for farmers). They also found potato leafhopper, green cloverworm, Japanese beetle and corn rootworm. Not too surprising given its mid-July, and soybeans are blooming and corn is silking.

In case you want to try something a little different, you may be interested in listening to a podcast about field crop pest management. If you are new to podcasting, it is basically an audio file. Some people listen to podcasts on their computer/smart device, in their vehicles while traveling, or on a mp3 player (e.g., i-pod).