Big spray day at Nashua

This morning, we sprayed foliar insecticides at the Northeast Research Farm near Nashua, Iowa. This is the nation's largest soybean aphid efficacy evaluation, and it's been building ever since it started in 2005. This year, we had 35 treatments at Nashua and 25 treatments at the Northwest Research Farm near Sutherland. We also have a smaller evaluation for Japanese beetle near Ames.

This year, our soybean aphid counts have been almost non-existent. But we are trying to make lemonade out of our research trials. We've been monitoring for spider mites as well, and will have some updated information on efficacy summaries after harvest. We publish all of our soybean pest evaluations in a Yellow Book and post them online. You can find 2005-2011 Yellow Books on our soybean aphid website.

I thought you might like to see our spray crew in action. Enjoy!

Safety first...my lab is very conscientious about PPE!

 We use a backpack sprayer with a 6-row boom to cover our plots. It takes two people to get the job done. 

It took about 4 hours to get all the plots treated this year. It was great weather to spray this year!