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.

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).

Red crown rot (RCR) of soybean has NOT yet been found in Iowa, but it has cropped up in several neighboring states. RCR is fairly widespread across Illinois and has been identified in Missouri, Wisconsin, and Minnesota (Fig 1). It is likely only a matter of time before RCR is identified in Iowa. 

Overall disease pressure for the 2026 growing season has been relatively low, especially compared to the southern rust outbreak we experienced last growing season. Gray leaf spot, northern corn leaf blight, bacterial leaf streak, Curvularia leaf spot, southern rust, tar spot, Goss’s wilt and Physoderma brown spot have all been observed in corn fields across Iowa this growing season. However, no one disease has become particularly severe and threatened yields so far. 

The corn crop is advancing in growth stages, and farmers, agronomists, and crop scouts are all keeping a close eye on fields to monitor for the development of foliar disease. While some diseases are present in fields, pressure is significantly lower than in 2025. Many images have come in of other corn issues – some disease, some not. Questions about what is and isn’t Curvularia leaf spot, a new disease to Iowa, are by far the most common.