Integrated Crop Management News Provides Timely Information
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AMES, Iowa – A makeover of Iowa State University Extension’s Integrated Crop Management (ICM) Newsletter for the 2008 crop season is proving to be a boon to Iowa farmers and service providers as they look for advice on how to deal with this year’s unusual growing conditions.
The newsletter, now called ‘ICM News,’ provides expert information on a wide range of topics relating to crop production and protection. It was converted from a print format to an all-electronic delivery format in March of this year. The new ICM News continues an effort begun in 1992 to provide a timely resource to producers and agribusiness.
Extreme weather conditions this year, including an unusually wet spring that delayed planting in many areas of the state, followed by widespread flooding and intense storms, created an urgency among Iowa farm operators and service providers to find information on how to respond to the situations they face, according to Paul Brown, assistant director of ISU Extension’s Agriculture and Natural Resources programs.
“ICM News assembles a panel of experts in a conference call each Monday morning to assess current crop conditions around the state and to address crop management issues,” said Brown. The weekly call includes ISU Extension field agronomists who are based in all crop reporting districts in the state, as well as campus faculty in the Agronomy, Plant Pathology and Entomolgy Departments. Experts from other areas, including Agriculture and Biosystems Engineering and Economics, participate as needed, depending on the topics under discussion.
The meetings have resulted in publication of about 125 articles since March on topics ranging from the economic impact of delayed planting to how to scout fields for black cutworms. The discussion each week of the most urgent issues determines what will be in the next issue of the ICM News.
“The all-electronic delivery format of ICM News allows the information to be distributed as soon as it is available, often within a few hours of when a problem is identified,” said Brown. “In previous years, printing and mailing requirements could delay vital reports for as much as a week.”
ICM News is available at no charge to anyone with computer access to the World Wide Web, and it is widely used by farm operators, agribusiness service providers, and others who follow production agriculture.
Readers are invited to request an electronic subscription to ICM News, which allows them to receive an e-mail notification once a day or once a week that summarizes new information that has become available, with links to complete articles. The articles also are available without a subscription to anyone who visits ICM News on the web site at www.extension.iastate.edu/CropNews and they also can be accessed through county extension offices.
“Nearly 12,000 readers visited the web site in June, with nearly 54,000 pages viewed,” added Brown. “Those numbers compare with a circulation of about 3,500 copies of the newsletter through U.S. mail subscriptions last year.”
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- Full story: http://www.extension.iastate.edu/news/2008/jul/061401.htm
- from Iowa State University Extension - News