Field Scouting
Field scouting is simply the act of examining fields in order to assess soil conditions, plant growth and insect presence. It takes a knowledge of the crops being examined, the soil in which the crops are planted and the various diseases and pests that can affect the crop in order to be a good field scout. Field scouting is not a one time activity, it should be done weekly during the growing season and even daily when weather conditions favor the development of pests or when pest infestation approaches impact levels on the field.
Field scouting also provides ground truthing for the those producers who employ remote sensing and aerial imagery. Ground truthing is nothing more than actually walking the field to the spots indicated by the remote sensing data or aerial imagerey and seeing if the plants or ground indicate the same problems.
Field scouting can be a challenge when the soybeans are waist high or when you’re in a field of 10 foot tall corn. Aerial imagery that can provide georeferenced positions in the field are big help in finding the trouble areas when field scouting.
The field scout is going to look at leaf color and the types of damage to leaves and stems. Other areas to be examined are the population, size and vigor. They’re going to take into account different planting dates, variety of seed, seeding rate and depth, herbicides and fertilizers applied, soil type, physical properties of the soil and drainage characteristics. Variations of the soil include depth of topsoil, presence of claypan, water table, sandy or gravelly subsoil and historical differences in the application rates of fertilizers and lime.
While field scouting may be as simple as a windshield survey from a truck on the highway, in order to have a good understanding of the crops growth and the fields production it takes getting out and walking the field. New technologies are having a vast impact on field scouting and its ability to provide efficient data for the producer. Remote sensing, aerial imagery, GIS/GPS mapping and yield mapping all have their places but in most case only a manual inspection of the ground can pull all of that information together to make a management decision from. Field scouting will continue to be a primary service provided by agronomists to aid the farm producer.
