 Hello everyone, I'm Sam Markell. I'm an extension plant pathologist at NDSU and I'm going to bring you an update for the Carrington Research and Extension Center field day. And I apologize I can't be there in person to be with you today, but I thought we'd shoot maybe from another location on NDSU's campus that's interesting. So I thank Coach Ends for being welcoming and let me shoot from the main office. So Greg Endress asked me to give you an update about soybean cyst nematode and on dry beans and soybeans. So a little background on this issue. This is an invasive pathogen. It's a parasitic worm and it first showed up in the U.S. about 70 years ago. It started in North Carolina and very quickly moved to the Great Plains. And over the course of the last half century it has consistently spread throughout the United States. And it was first found in North Dakota in 2003. And we now know that it occurs in 19 different counties. Now this parasitic worm will infect the roots of soybeans and dry beans and it'll form these little cysts. So there are little white cream colored structures that you can see. And each one of them is full of eggs. So about a month ago I was in Castleton for their agronomy seed farm field day and we dug up a bunch of roots. So you can see them really clearly here in the middle of the season. And so I expect that these cysts are developing in quite a few locations in the state and I strongly encourage everyone in the eastern half of the state to check for these. So there's a sampling program that can help you do this. So the North Dakota Soybean Council since 2013 has been sponsoring this program where they give sampling bags to each of the county offices, each of the county extension offices. And growers can go get those bags, take a sample and the fees are covered by the North Dakota Soybean Council. So it doesn't cost you anything. And so since 2013 I'm going to animate some maps for you. So all these little black dots are zero eggs. So eggs are the way that we measure the density of SCN. So the black circles are negative. The gray boxes, those are inconclusive. So the best way to look at this is you may or may not have it. But remember there's lots of other nematodes in the soil and so they all lay eggs. So they're inconclusive. But any of these colored boxes are real. And by the time you get up to these yellows and reds, it's really high egg levels, you're going to take yield loss and even good solid resistant soybean varieties. Now switching a little bit to dry beans, dry beans are a little different. The market classes are different and there's susceptibility. So kidney beans, which we know we have SCN and kidney beans across the river in Minnesota, you can see some pretty high yield loss from the kidneys. Blacks tend to be a little bit more resistant. But the pentose and navies are in the middle. Of course that's what we grow most of. So I'm strongly encouraged in everyone this fall to get in their fields and look for soybeans this nematode. Use the North Dakota Soybean Council sampling program. The lab fees are covered by the North Dakota Soybean Council. So go get a bag at the county office, take a soil probe or a shovel into your field, make 10 or 15 cores, mix it up and send it in the lab. You'll get your results in the mail. So to soybean sample, you can do it any time before or after harvest. Take a soil probe or a shovel and get into those roots. So instead of going between rows, go right at the roots and try to capture those eggs, those cysts that you see. You know, they grow on the plant, that's where you want to stab them. And if you're sampling for the first time, go to the place most likely to see soil enter a field because SCN moves with soil. So in most cases, that's the field entrance. Most of the time, if you bring in soil into a field, it's on a piece of equipment. You drop that piece of equipment down in the field and you've got new soil, introduced soil. The other ways that it could spread are through water. So if you have an area that's got a lot of flood water moving through, SCN moves that way and also in wind. So sometimes we see hot spots show up in ditches in the winter or along shelter belts from blowing soil. So if you find soybeans, this nematode, which really at this point, I'd say any grower in the eastern part of the state is at risk, you can manage it if you find it early. So sampling is really, really critical. If you can find it while those egg levels are low, you can really manage it. You can manage with genetic resistance in soybeans. You can manage with seed treatments a little bit. You can manage with crop rotation. At the end of the day, you want to put these tools together. And if you keep those egg levels low, you're going to mitigate your yield loss really well. So each one of these small white cream colored structures are an SCN female. So they've infected the root and they swell up and they become lemon shaped. And you can see them with your naked eye. It's kind of difficult because they're really small, but you can see them. Now each one of them is going to have maybe 100 to 200 eggs. And those are the eggs that we measure when we start sampling for SCN. And one thing that's important here is the life cycle. You can go through three life cycles in a season. So you can multiply your eggs very fast and you can go from having just a simple confirmation to being really at a level where you're going to take pretty dramatic yield loss in just one season. So I would strongly encourage everyone to sample. For soybean growers, there's one additional reason that you might want to sample. So soybean cyst nematode is really tied tightly to two different types of two different diseases, sudden death syndrome and brown stem rot. We know we have brown stem rot in the state and sudden death was confirmed in 2018 in Richland County. If you have SCN, you're at risk for these other two diseases. And you can manage both of them in part by managing soybean cyst nematode. Again, so soybean cyst nematode is sampling is very important. It doesn't cost you anything if you use the North Dakota soybean council sponsored sampling program. Pick up your bags at the NDSU Extension County office and sample this fall. Thanks again to Coach Enns for letting me give you an update from the NDSU Head Football Office. Appreciate your time and good luck this fall on Harvest.