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Madelynn Wuestenberg began her role with Iowa State University in January 2024, where she serves as an Agricultural Climatologist, specializing in environmental interactions and feedbacks with the atmosphere. Her love for the Iowa State Cyclones runs deep after earning her Bachelor of Science in meteorology and Master of Science in agricultural meteorology, both at Iowa State...

Continue reading this article on the North Central Region Water Network website.

Iowa landowners may apply to participate in the 2025 Landowner Education Program offered by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. The application window is open until April 4. Program events will take place in June and July...

Continue reading this article on ISUEO News.

Since 2015, the Iowa Monarch Conservation Consortium (IMCC) has been working to increase monarch butterfly conservation efforts across Iowa. By partnering with landowners, agricultural associations, conservation organizations, businesses, and state and federal agencies, the IMCC works to increase awareness on the need for monarch conservation throughout the state while also implementing the establishment of new monarch habitat...

Iowa State University Extension and Outreach’s Wild-harvested Mushroom Certification Class will return this spring, offering mushroom hunters a valuable opportunity to hone their identification skills, learn more about their favorite mushrooms and connect with fellow mushroom hunters.

After helping to deliver Master Conservationist and other programming for Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Polk County in her previous role as natural resources programming coordinator, Gina Buelow is eager to implement these programs statewide in her new role as natural resources field specialist...

Continue reading this article on ISU Extension and Outreach News

As I drive across the Iowa countryside in late fall, I see massive piles of corn waiting to be moved or sold. It has been a bumper year for corn and soybean production in our state. However, as Chad Hart, Extension grain markets economist, notes, this can have negative implications for farm incomes.

Read more in Diversify your Farm Portfolio with Conservation

Over the past few years, Iowa has consistently invested in monarch butterfly conservation by adding new areas of monarch habitat throughout the state. The Iowa Monarch Conservation Consortium (IMCC) has recently updated its Monarch Conservation Effort Report, which offers a summary of monarch habitat establishment through 2022 in all 99 counties across the state...

Continue reading on the CALS website.

Woodland owners who want to know the value of their forest or how their forest can be improved often just need to know where to begin. That’s the goal behind two new forest resources from Iowa State University Extension and Outreach. “Planning for Wooded Acreages and Woodlands” is a resource-filled article available on the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach Natural Resource Stewardship website, and the “Woodland Assessment Worksheet” is a three-page publicat

Starting a new job is always hard, but starting a new job as a conservation professional can feel extra tough. That’s because many conservation professionals are asked to have a wide range of professional competencies from planning events to explaining conservation practices to applying for funding opportunities.

While most of Iowa received much needed rain in the past two weeks, parts of northern Iowa saw their first snowfall of the 2024-25 winter season. A northwest Iowa CO-OP observer reported 1.7” of snow in Sibley. Just to the south, a CO-OP observer reported only 0.1”. 

Every decision we make on land we own or have influence over impacts the wildlife we share our world with. As a wildlife biologist, it’s my job to broker in the good and the bad of those outcomes. Sometimes, it’s too many deer or too persistent a digging mammal. Others, it’s not enough, like the collective concern we have for rare or declining species like the monarch butterfly and other pollinators or a hunter yearning for a few more pheasants to flush.

On October 7, cool temperatures crept in overnight. Some areas in western Iowa briefly reached temperatures as low as 28 degrees, particularly in valley regions, where lower elevations collected colder, denser air. This event, however, was not widespread and remained isolated to low-lying areas.

In the past 30 days, much of the state has received 25-70% of average precipitation, with the exception of southern Iowa, which had 70-130% of normal precipitation, most of which fell within the last 14 days.

Forestry has been a passion for Emma Kerns for about as long as she can remember. She grew up on her family’s crop and cattle farm in Delaware County, helping with farm chores and helping take care of the family forest. For the past two years, she was manager of the Stephens State Forest, in south central Iowa...

Continue reading this article on ISU Extension and Outreach News.

I’ve recently started saying that conservation is a contact sport. We need friends and neighbors talking to friends and neighbors about the ways in which they’re helping water and wildlife and why it matters to them. And we need progress in every community and in every corner of our state. That’s why conservation also needs a big tent.

Twenty-five Iowans recently graduated from the inaugural Landowner Education Program. The graduation ceremony was held Aug. 29 at the Ankeny Kirkendall Public Library. Organized by Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, the program includes a half-dozen in-person educational sessions with the aim of improving conservation knowledge and implementation within the Des Moines River Watershed...

Continue reading this article on ISUEO News.

AMES, Iowa -- A team of Iowa 4-H members brought home a fifth-place award this summer in a national wildlife habitat management competition.

The team of Lauren Keller, Wyatt Silhanek and Josey Wacha competed in the National Wildlife Habitat Education Program contest in Brownwood, Texas, July 28-31. They earned their spot in the national contest after placing first at the State WHEP Competition earlier in the summer. Haley Princehouse and Raina Genaw coached the team.

Keeping Iowans safe in the outdoors is the goal behind a new series of podcast episodes airing on the Habitat University podcast. The “Habitat Safety Miniseries” will cover topics such as prescribed fire safety, pesticide safety, heavy equipment safety, as well as chainsaw safety. The series will feature safety advice from experts in Iowa and across the nation, and is narrated by Adam Janke, extension wildlife specialist with Iowa State University Extension and Outreach, as wel

Ethan Thies has joined Iowa State University Extension and Outreach as the program’s first conservation field specialist. Thies began the new role July 29 and will be based out of the ISU Extension and Outreach Carroll County office...

Continue reading on the Conservation Learning Group blog.

Average temperatures across Iowa for the past 7 days have stayed around 0 to 4 degrees cooler than normal, with average temperatures from 68 to 72 degrees. The average daily high temperature has been 76 to 83 degrees, which is 0 to 4 degrees cooler than normal.