The Dakotan: This is Ag Issues with Neil Roberts. Neil Roberts: Welcome to another edition of Ag Issues. Our guest this week is NDSU plant pathologist Sam Markell. And Sam, Let's talk soybeans. August is a crucial time to scout. I understand. And let's start with the eastern part of the state and into Minnesota. Sam Markell: Yeah. August is that crucial time or if you had some infection early in the season. Maybe you didn't see those diseases will start to pop in mid-August. It's getting warmer. It's getting a little drier and the pathogens have a little bit more time to do their thing. So in the eastern part of the state, the things I'm thinking of are sudden death syndrome, brown stem rot and then charcoal rot. Charcoal rot as a disease that likes it hot and dry. And we saw a lot of that in the last couple of years that survives in the soil like the rest of these. And all of them will start to pop in August. Neil Roberts: All right. Good stuff, Sam. Hey, we'll take a look at the western part of the state and into Montana when we come back. The Dakotan: You're listening to Ag Issues with Neil Roberts on the Dakotan network. Neil Roberts: Talking soybean with NDSU Sam Markell today on Ag Issues. And Sam, tell us about scouting in western North Dakota and into Montana. Sam Markell: Yes, soybeans out in this part of the country, out west in the central part they're almost like a honeymoon phase right now. They're kind of a newer crop. They haven't been growing soybean and soybean for many years. So a lot of the diseases that we see maybe in the east, we don't really worry about too much. So I was out doing the field day tour at NDSU a couple of weeks ago. And the biggest thing that I saw was bacterial blight on the leaves of soybeans. And that unlike bacterial leaf streak and bacterial leaf flight in soybeans is really not an issue at all. The biggest thing is it just stings up the leaves a little bit, but it's not going to cause any illness. The one thing that I might consider doing in particular is towards the end of the season, you might want to think about a soil test for soybean cyst nematode, soybean cyst nematodes, a big problem out east, and it's slowly moving west. So depending on where you are, you might want to think about sampling for that around the time of harvest. Neil Roberts: Good stuff, Sam. Thanks for that. That will bring this report to a close to next time. I'm Neil Roberts. The Dakotan: You're listening to the Dakotan Network. Real. Honest. Local news.
