The focus of the day was the drought-stressed crops in the fields of Iowa.
“As we continue to experience warm and dry weather conditions, part of our program will focus on the impact and expectations of the 2021 crop to help growers plan for the future,” said Terry Basol, field agronomist at ISU Extension and Outreach.
To the ISU entomologist Erin Hodgson, any field day that she can answer a question about an insect by pulling the insect out of her pocket is a good field day.
“I’m a visual person so I want to see either the insect or the injury itself, and I feel like some farmers are definitely visual too,” Hodgson said.
The annual spring field day was on June 24th Hodgson’s first face-to-face meeting with a group of farmers in over a year.
ISU entomologist Erin Hodgson speaks to farmers at the ISU Northeast Research and Demonstration Farm in Nashua, Iowa during a field day June 24. (Noah Fisch / Agweek)
Hodgson recently answered many farmers’ questions about soybean gall mosquito – which was found first in Nebraska in 2011 and then in South Dakota in 2015. Hodgson pulled a pattern bow tie from her pocket and gave it to the farmer to be passed around.
“I didn’t plan on doing this at all, but it’s nice to actually have a sample that people can look at and guess the size and color,” she said.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service’s crop report dated June 28, around 44% of Iowa reported severe drought, with more than 90% of the state considered unusually dry. The worst drought conditions were in northern and central Iowa.
The drought conditions and heat in general are ideal for insects, Hodgson said.
“A warmer summer means insects develop faster,” she said.
Species that can have several generations per year – like the bean leaf beetle, can devastate crops in an above-average hot season, she said.
“You will run through these generations faster and potentially have more influence at the end of the season,” said Hodgson. “Contrasted with a cool year where the last generation may not be produced if there is still a harvest.”
Elwynn Taylor, retired ISU climate researcher, said there was enough “hardness in the atmosphere” to watch for its effects on plants.
Taylor, who retired last January, has spent most of his life monitoring the environment and its impact on crops.
“I’ve always been very careful about connecting plants, and not just because of our family’s farms,” Taylor said after presenting to farmers at Nashua Field Day. “Because I was interested in how the weather affects people and plants – living things.”
Ask Taylor to explain this year’s extreme weather and he will point out a cycle that peaks every 89 years in abnormal weather.
“The weather we have now is not much different than it was 100 years ago,” said Taylor.
ISU Northeast Research and Demonstration Farm in Nashua, Iowa, during a field day on June 24th. (Noah Fisch / Agweek)
He said the last two toughest seasons were 1846-47 and the Dust Bowl 1935-36. During the worst drought in Iowa in the summer of 1936, there were reports of entire fields drying up and farm animals dying from lack of food.
“It was 1847, 1936, so 2025 would be the next normal time for the same things as ’36,” Taylor said.
While the farmers fear the unknown when it comes to the weather, they have to fight enemy pests for their crops every day in the trenches.
Hodgson said in recent years the corn rootworm has worried Iowa farmers more than any other pest.
“Now almost everyone who grows corn in Iowa has to think about the corn rootworm,” she said. “Whatever strategies you’ve used in the past, I think you’ll see more activity, more lost revenue, and more difficult decisions going forward.”
Rootworm beetles can be caught with small and yellow glue traps that are set up in the fields every week. It’s not a new method, Hodgson said, but the systems used to monitor the practice have expanded.
“Now with increased activity (corn rootworm) in corn fields, people are interested in knowing what is going on in their field,” Hodgson said. “So people are bringing back an old-school sampling method and using it again.”
The latest development in detention trap monitoring is Corn Rootworm IPM, an interactive map of trap results. So far, 12 states and five Canadian provinces have been working together to provide data that is then available to the public free of charge.
Field day was Hodgson’s first foray that summer from Ames to northeast Iowa, where many of the fields she encountered looked dry and prone to pests.
“The effects of things like spider mites and grasshoppers are going to be more significant to people, and it was nice to see for myself,” Hodgson said. “It is worrying how much drought there is in this part of the state.”
The tour took place in muggy 90-degree temperatures without much breeze, but Hodgson was still thrilled to be there in person.
ISU entomologist Erin Hodgson speaks during a field day June 24 at ISU Northeast Research and Demonstration Farm in Nashua, Iowa. (Noah Fisch / Agweek)
“I’ve had much better face-to-face interactions over Zoom, which I’ve done a lot over the last year,” she said. “I really feel like the interaction is better when someone is on a people mover, seeing lots and plants, and seeing the injuries and activities for themselves.”
She stayed after the scheduled part of the tour was over and chatted with the participants, including Erwin Johnson, a farmer in Charles City, Iowa.
“Well then, I’m going home today totally depressed,” said Johnson, who has been a farmer for more than 50 years. “First I hear Elwynn (Taylor) say it’s going to be bad for years, then our insect specialist tells us it’s a good year for insects.”
At this point in his career, Johnson said years like this – what he sees as the worst since 2012 make him a bit hopeless.
“I’m an agricultural veteran, but it still puts a mental strain on you,” he said of the drought conditions this year. “Just the stress of the plants not doing as well as you would like and you’ve done all of these things that you think are optimal to create the best possible environment for your plants.”
