Planting is nearing a close for most operations, but the jobs of the pest scout are just getting rolling. Ken covers what they should be on the lookout for in this week’s Boots In The Field Report. Scouts should be evaluating corn fields for crusting issues and dust storm damage and soybeans for crusting and PPO damage to make hoeing and replanting decisions. They also need to be evaluating timing of post spraying, noting any fields that are experiencing a pre-plant herbicide failure that would need post spraying moved up and fields that are stressed from dust storm damage and need to wait for new growth before post spraying to not over stress the crop. Heat units are significantly moved up compared to a normal year, so scouts need to be watching for cutworm, corn borer, cucumber beetle, June bugs, and flea beetle now. And due to a large number of fields worked in unfavorable conditions, scouts need to take note of fields that now have a compaction layer that needs to be addressed this fall before fields could be taken into or go back to no-till. Due to the large amounts of rain, scouts will also need to be pulling nitrates to check for Nitrogen loss.