Collaborating across the North Carolina soybean sector to develop a dynamic webpage for emerging problems from the field

Soybean [ Glycine max (L.) Merr.] production in North Carolina is supported by a network of knowledgeable field‐based professionals, including Extension agents, crop consultants, and agronomists, who regularly diagnose and manage in‐field issues. Despite the wealth of information exchanged through these interactions, much of it is never formally documented or shared for broader educational purposes. To address this gap, an online tool, Beans Gone Wild (BGW), was launched as a collaborative, statewide initiative to centralize and publicly catalog real‐time soybean production issues. Developed with input from Extension specialists, the North Carolina Plant Disease and Insect Clinic, and industry partners, BGW featured an interactive map and a searchable problem library supported by research‐based references. In the launch year (2023), 57 entries were crowdsourced onto the map, and this number grew to 89 in 2024. Diseases and insects were the top disorder categories for contributions to the map. Use of the tool expanded from 911 unique users in 2023 to 1254 users in 2024. Over the 2 years of its operation, 72 research‐based resources were highlighted within disorder reports on the map. By linking field‐based observations with science‐backed resources, BGW, which has since evolved into Root Cause Reports , empowers farmers, consultants, educators, and students to make informed and timely decisions and has inspired national adaptations, such as Crop Lookout .