News

Regular visitors to the Southwest Research and Outreach Center (SWROC) website may notice a new look to the reported weather data. In September, the SWROC joined several other ROCs partnering with the Minnesota Department of Agriculture (MDA) to join and collect data for the Minnesota Ag Weather Network (MAWN). This project upgrades the ROCs’ current weather stations with advanced technology that is standardized across the MDA’s network and provides current weather updates every 15 minutes.

To help Minnesota soybean producers understand their risks and management options, the MN Soybean Research & Promotion Council is sponsoring the fall 2024 SCN Sampling Program, which will pay for the first 500 samples received.

Preliminary yield results from the 2024 variety trials are now available at varietytrials.umn.edu for the following crops: spring wheat, winter wheat, winter rye, winter triticale, barley, and oats. The annual report including all crops and finalized data will be published later this year.

The UMN Southwest Research & Outreach Center (SWROC) near Lamberton hosted over 40 local 1st through 5th graders Tuesday, July 30 and Wednesday, July 31 for the Bell Museum Summer Camp program. The camp immersed students in science and nature with hands-on investigation, games, creative projects, and guided outdoor exploration

The 2024 planting season was off to a good start, and then much-needed rains came. Not only did the rains halt planting progress, delay in spring fieldwork also possibly derailed the best-laid plans for the season’s weed control.

Read more about this year's planting season and weed concerns on the Farm Progress website.

Hot and dry. Those words describe the 2021 growing season here at the Southwest Research and Outreach Center, as well as across much of Minnesota. 

Redwood County, where the SWROC is located, spent much of the summer in the U.S. Drought Monitor’s moderate and extreme drought categories, with portions of the county reaching extreme drought levels at the end of July. 

While the drought’s impact can only be seen as a negative for most corn and soybean growers in the region, the dry growing season presented exciting research opportunities for Professor Jeff Strock, who conducts drainage water quality research at the SWROC. 

Ken Ostlie and Bruce Potter are involved in a project to determine whether sticky trap data from individual fields can be combined to draw inferences on general geographic and historical trends of CRW populations and Bt resistance. They're looking for collaborators to contribute data to this work. To participate:

• If you would like to run a CRW trapline(s) but need traps, they can supply trapping kits (first come/first serve basis), recommended sampling procedures and a data entry spreadsheet. 
• If you have purchased your own traps to sample CRW and would be willing to share data for fields where a minimum of 3-4 traps were checked weekly for a 3–4-week period after silking, it will be appreciated. 
• If you so choose, you have the option to contribute data to a multi-state CRW monitoring network.

You will have the management information derived from the fields you trapped. Individual field locations will not be made public and only composite images of risk geography will be shared among cooperators.  

If you would like to participate, or have questions, email [email protected] or [email protected].

This project is funded, in part, by Minnesota farm families and their checkoff dollars.

The 2021 UMN Cooperative Black Cutworm Trapping Network is now active. Traps picked up the first migrants on March 30. Weekly newsletters, and a revised PDF version of black cutworm facts can downloaded on the Black Cutworm Reporting Network web page.

A new soybean pest, the soybean gall midge has been found in many counties in SW Minnesota. The soybean gall midge infestations that have been detected are not uniformly distributed geographically and most of these have been minor. You can help entomologists better understand where and why soybean gall midge infestations occur by filling out the Minnesota Soybean Gall Midge Survey. Please only complete one survey per farm.   

(WNAX Radio) IPM Specialist Bruce Potter discusses corn rootworm and other pests with WNAX Radio.