Stinkhorns In Corn And Soybean Fields

 

 

If you have noticed a proliferation of foul-smelling, obscene-looking mushrooms popping up in fields this season, there is no cause for alarm. These aptly named “stinkhorn” fungi tend to produce their mushrooms in fertile soil when conditions are wet. Stinkhorn species prefer soils enriched with manure, wood chips, and other organic debris. As decomposers, they help with composting soil, and they pose no threat to healthy plants. Their obnoxious dung and rotten-meat smells attract flies that feed on their gelatinous masses of spores and disperse them to other locations that flies frequent. The stinkhorns are members of the fungus family Phallaceae, which includes a number of phallic-shaped mushroom species as well as other bizarre mushrooms that mycologists tend to find charming (google “devil’s fingers” or “veiled lady stinkhorn”, for example). If you don’t find them attractive, you’ll just have to wait for them to go away as soil conditions change; there is no reasonable method to get rid of them.

 

Video: Comparing the Economics of No-Till, Strip-Till & Conventional Systems

Conservation Ag Update, brought to you by Bio-Till Cover Crops, Univ. of Illinois analysts dive into new data from the Precision Conservation Management program, comparing the economic differences between no-till, strip-till and other tillage systems.

Plus, we head to Washington County, Wis., for an update on two farmers who dealt with historic flooding over the summer. Blake Basse credits strip-till and cover crops for helping his cash crops survive the “1,000-year” rain event, while Ross Bishop says his no-till fields are more resilient than his neighbor’s conventional fields.