There is tremendous interest from growers and the agricultural industry on the soybean production issues that arise across the state annually. To date, this information has only been available through word-of-mouth, however having real-time access to this knowledge could be transformative in informing scouting and subsequent management decisions. This foundational project will support utilizing technology and strong relationships across the North Carolina soybean sector to develop a dynamic webpage that captures soybean production issues and summarizes them in a publically available, visually appealing, and educational format for the benefit of the North Carolina soybean sector. A collaborative group of Extension Agents, Consultants, Private Industry, the NC State Plant Disease and Insect Clinic, and NC State Extension Specialists will collaboratively develop a public facing webpage (available through NC State and the NC Soybean Producers Association) that will house arising issues from the field and provide concise information about the issues, associated photos, and recommendations to resolve the issue when appropriate. The collaborating individuals will submit information associated with field problems using an app and the program manager will summarize this information and populate it into the public facing webpage. We envision 2023 as a beta-testing year and the webpage will be improved and expanded upon in subsequent years. We intend to invite broader collaborators to contribute to the webpage in subsequent years but will focus on a subgroup of collaborators during the beta-testing phase to ensure we can handle the initial process with excellence. The webpage developed through this project amplifies currently available soybean expertise across the state into educational benefit for the North Carolina soybean sector and beyond.

1. Develop a dynamic webpage that will capture soybean production problems arising across North Carolina and catalog these into a visual map that provides research-backed resources to resolve associated problems
2. Collaborate with the NC State Plant Disease and Insect Clinic to leverage received samples for broader educational benefit
3. Expand upon strong relationships across the NC soybean sector to build the dynamic webpage by collaborating with industry, consultants, the NC State Plant Disease and Insect Clinic, NC State Extension Agents, and NC State Extension Specialists

Expected end products include, but are not limited to:
-Dynamic webpage hosting information on soybean problems as they arise from the field that will be co-located on the NC State Soybean Extension Portal, NC Soybean Producers Association Website, and NC Soybean Producers Association App.
-Improved ability to answer questions from Agents and growers in North Carolina.
-Grower meeting presentations.
-Field day presentations.
-Electronic media updates.

North Carolina has a diverse set of talented field-based experts helping growers troubleshoot soybean problems that arise in the field. These individuals, such as Extension Agents, Crop Consultants, and Industry Agronomists, help growers work through these encountered problems in a variety of ways that include boots-on-the-ground visits, phone calls, text messages, and emails. Often additional follow-up is needed through submission of plants or soil samples to the Plant Disease and Insect Clinic, the NCDA, or a private lab, ultimately allowing a robust follow up with the clientele on the encountered issues and recommendations to avoid the problem in the future. Each of these encounters often results in photos, videos, site descriptions, management practices, and recommendations that could benefit the broader NC soybean community, but due to time constraints this information never makes it from the field, our inboxes or our phones into a format that could educationally benefit other growers and agricultural stakeholders. What is now needed is a collaborative effort across the NC soybean sector to commit to publically cataloging encountered issues in the field to benefit growers, Agents, and other NC agricultural stakeholders. The development of a dynamic map collaboratively populated with soybean problems as they arise in the field would be a novel contribution to improve our understanding of annual variability and the influence on soybean production in this state. Leveraging strong collaboration across the NC soybean sector, this project delivers on the following priority areas: cooperating with industry, increasing soybean yield and profitability, and leveraging available technology to enhance decision making abilities.