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Some Upper Midwest farmers seeing minimal weed and pest pressure

Farmers in north-central and northeast Iowa are seeing minimal weed and pest pressure.

Iowa Soybean Association research agronomist Shane Beck says fields “look pretty clean.”

“I did see a corn field last week that had some velvet leaf coming, but nothing I was super concerned with yet. It looks like the preemergence worked really well.”

He tells Brownfield growers should be scouting for insects and early season diseases.

“Haven’t really seen too much of anything yet, which is kind of a good thing. I think that really cold winter we had probably killed off a lot of our pests and disease might not have survived as well.”

Beck says corn and soybean planting in his region is well past the halfway point with some growers finishing last week.