Have you ever wondered what a particular plant or insect is in your field, yard, or garden? We have all been there, and we have great news: a new tool is available for farmers everywhere! Iowa State University's Pest ID App is now available. Developed by ISU researchers, the Pest ID app uses deep learning models trained on millions of images to recognize weeds and insects directly from your photo.

Input costs like fertilizer and limestone continue to be worrisome for farmers. Maximizing the plant availability of soil nutrients is crucial to optimizing crop production and nutrient supply to crops. One way in which to do this is by managing soil pH – actually it is one of the more important management practices. Soil pH is often overlooked when considering nutrient inputs.

The following content is summarized from the What in the Weather Podcast by Dan Fillius, Justin Glisan, and Madelynn Wuestenberg. 

You can find more information about weather impacts on specialty crops and home horticulture on Dan Fillius' website and information from today's podcast on the latest newsletter. 

Regional Update: 

As the growing season starts to wind down, sudden death syndrome, western bean cutworm, Goss’s wilt, southern rust, tar spot, weed escapes, and the start of corn silage harvest are some of the topics or issues ISU Extension and Outreach field agronomists are seeing or hearing about in fields across the state. Read on for more specifics. 

It was only a matter of time before this article needed to be written. Yesterday, we scouted a field in Des Moines County in southeast Iowa. The short story: red crown rot (RCR) was identified in a swath stretching across part of the field. In talking with the farmer, he noted that the same area had shown up on the yield monitor map two years ago, but he assumed it was sudden death syndrome (SDS).