In a Nov. 30, 2015 post on the Plant Management Network (PMN) website, an article entitled “New Insect, Weed, and Disease Threats Challenge Producers” provides insights from three of Mississippi State University’s outstanding crop specialists on new and/or continuing pest threats that producers can expect to deal with in their cropping operations. Dr. Angus Catchot discusses encroaching insect pests to watch for, Dr. Tom Allen discusses the increasing problem of fungicide-resistant frogeye leaf spot and the resurgence of nematodes in soybean cropping systems, and Dr. Jason Bond discusses the continuing battle against glyphosate-resistant Palmer amaranth and Italian ryegrass.

In a Nov. 2015 PMN post entitled “First Report of Sudden Death Syndrome (SDS) of Soybean Caused by Fusarium virguliforme in Louisiana”, Louisiana State University scientists and specialists provide a detailed account of their confirmation of the first-reported presence of SDS in Louisiana soybeans. SDS has been increasing in Midsouth soybeans in recent years, and was a major yield-limiting disease in Missouri and Tennessee in 2014. This confirmed presence in Louisiana indicates that this disease may become a major soybean pest in the more southern Midsouth states in coming years. Resources that give details about this disease and its potential management can be found here, here, and here. If/when this disease becomes a major pest in the lower Midsouth states, a detailed White Paper that is specific to SDS in this region will be posted on this website.

On another note, MSPB’s Pipe Planner instructional video entitled “Pipe Planner: All you need to know” that was directed by Dr. Joe Massey received an “Extension Educational Materials Award” from the American Society of Agronomy (ASA) Extension Education Community at the recent ASA Annual Meetings in Minneapolis, MN. This award for excellence provides further confirmation that this video is an excellent resource that can be used to learn how to use Pipe Planner to plan water-conserving furrow irrigation setups for Midsouth row crops.

Composed by Larry G. Heatherly, Dec. 2015, larryheatherly@bellsouth.net