North Carolina has a diverse set of talented field-based experts helping growers troubleshoot soybean problems that arise in the field. These individuals, such as Extension Agents, Crop Consultants, and Industry Agronomists, help growers work through these encountered problems in a variety of ways that include boots-on-the-ground visits, phone calls, text messages, and emails. Each of these encounters often results in photos, videos, site descriptions, management practices, and recommendations that could benefit the broader NC soybean community.
We are very excited to introduce our new interactive tool, Beans Gone Wild, that will catalog these soybean problems arising in the field across North Carolina in a dynamic map. In this tool, background about each problem, conclusions about the problem, educational resources, and high-quality photos are provided. These posts are reviewed and recommendations are provided by the relevant NC State Extension Specialist prior to posting. These problems will also be saved into a library to access in future years for educational purposes. Users can search in the library by the type of problem or by County. This tool will serve as a resource for Extension Agents, farmers, and other agricultural industry professionals to have an understanding of problems arising across the state and associated resources.
In this inaugural year for the tool, NC State Extension Specialists, N.C. Cooperative Extension Agents (led by Rod Gurganus), the NC Plant Disease and Insect Clinic, and select NC Crop Consultants (Tidewater Agronomics and Protech Agronomics) are the core team contributing to the tool. This tool is managed by Crop and Soil Sciences graduate student Lilly Bunch. Our goal is that collaborators populating the tool will expand as time progresses into subsequent seasons.
The Beans Gone Wild effort is funded by the NC Soybean Producers Association and the NC Agricultural Foundation. NC State Extension IT has been imperative in creating the interface for Beans Gone Wild and we are thankful for the devotion of their resources and cooperation.
If you have suggestions about the Bean Gone Wild tool, please contact Dr. Rachel Vann.
