ILLINOIS FIELD CROPS APPLICATOR PRACTICE EXAM
2025/2026 QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS GRADED A+
✔✔Germination - ✔✔Begin with the imbibition of a kernel that has lost its post-harvest
dormancy.
The radicle & coleoptile emerge from the seed.
The first three seminal roots are produced.
The coleoptile elongated pushing the growing point toward the soil surface.
✔✔Seedling Development - ✔✔First leaves to first tiller
Up to 6 seminal roots and 3 leaves
Crown noticeable after 3rd leaf has emerged
✔✔Flowering Pollination or Anthesis - ✔✔Pollination and fertilization
Embryo and endosperm begin to form immediately after fertilzation
This stage might be difficult to identify in barley and oats, why?
Continue fungicide application vs. FHB
In warmer weather this stages happen in 1-2days
✔✔Milk Development - ✔✔Early kernel formation occurs during this stage.
The developing endosperm starts as a milky fluid that increases in solids as the milk
stage progresses.
Kernel size increases rapidly during this stage.
✔✔Dough Development - ✔✔Kernel formation is complete
Kernel accumulates most of its dry weight
The developing kernel is physiologically at the hard dough stage even though it still
contains approximately 30% water.
✔✔Critical growth stages - ✔✔Adaptive mechanisms
Optimize growth + Deal with environmental stresses
Breeding: Selects for increased yield + adaptation
Understanding of how plants respond to environmental stresses at different growth
stages can assist in the assessment of crop condition and production potential
throughout the growing season.
✔✔Yield Components - ✔✔Crop yield is the biological and mathematical product of the
components of yield.
Grain yield = Nf x Ns x Ws
Where:
Nf = number of florets.
Ns = number of seeds.
,Ws = weight per seed.
✔✔Domestication - ✔✔It is the outcome of a selection process that leads to increased
adaptation of plant and animals to cultivation or rearing and utilization by humans.
✔✔Domestication syndrome - ✔✔Similar set of traits has been selected during
domestication:
Adaptation to cultivation
desirability of human consumption and use
✔✔Domesticated cereals Trait selection: - ✔✔More diverse environment and have a
wilder geographic range
Brittle rachis
Uniform maturity
Low seed dormancy
✔✔Parts of the Disease Triangle - ✔✔Host
Pathogen
Environment
✔✔Fusarium seedling blight
Fusarium crown rot - ✔✔-Incidence:
Can be carried on seed or in crop debris
Seed rots or seedlings are killed before emergence
Poor stand establishment, non-uniform emergence, "gaps" or missing plants
-Symptoms:
Seedlings are stunted and yellow
Crown, roots or lower stem have a brown to red-brown rot.
Older plants - reduction in #/ size of tillers that mature prematurely with white and
shriveled heads.
✔✔Fungicide seed treatment - ✔✔Use combination of fungicides - no one fungicide is
effective against all these diseases:
seed rots
seedling blights
seed-borne septoria
seed-borne Fusarium seedling blight
seed-borne dwarf bunt
common bunt
loose smut
✔✔Leaf, stem, head and grain disease - ✔✔Tan spot/RS
FHB/FDK
Rusts
Loose smut
, Common bunt
BP/SM
Streak mosaic virus
Others...
✔✔Tan spot/ Red smudge - ✔✔Tan spot has been increasing in AB as a result of
reduced tillage
Barley and oats more resistant than wheat
✔✔Tan Spot Pathogen Life Cycle - ✔✔Rain splash moves conidia up plant causing
reinfection
Leaf spotting symptoms
At the end of season pseudothecia develops
Overwinters as mycelium/pseudothecia on crop debris
Primary infection from conidia and ascospores
✔✔Tan Spot Management - ✔✔Crop rotation: Include non-host crops:
other cereals, corn, soybeans and alfalfa.
Residue management
✔✔Fusarium head blight (FHB)
Fusarium damaged kernels (FDK - ✔✔-Incidence:
Severe outbreaks - warm and wet weather at the flowering to soft-dough stages.
Mycotoxins
-Symptoms:
Bleached heads 3-5 days after infection
Salmon-orange to pink ring of spores at the base of the spikelet or in the crease of the
kernel
FDK are usually shrunken, wrinkled and light in weight
✔✔Leaf Rust - ✔✔
✔✔Stem Rust - ✔✔
✔✔Stripe Rust - ✔✔
✔✔Stripe Rust Life Cycle - ✔✔Stem rust needs alternate host common barberry - More
common in ON
Stripe rust does not require an alternate host to complete its life cycle.
✔✔Stripe Rust Management - ✔✔Use tolerant varieties(co-evolution plant-pathogen)
Spraying before stripe rust reaches 5%of leaf area on the flag leaf (Australia studies)
Seed treatment
Floiar fungicide application
Crop rotation - Breaks "green bridge" effect
2025/2026 QUESTIONS WITH ANSWERS GRADED A+
✔✔Germination - ✔✔Begin with the imbibition of a kernel that has lost its post-harvest
dormancy.
The radicle & coleoptile emerge from the seed.
The first three seminal roots are produced.
The coleoptile elongated pushing the growing point toward the soil surface.
✔✔Seedling Development - ✔✔First leaves to first tiller
Up to 6 seminal roots and 3 leaves
Crown noticeable after 3rd leaf has emerged
✔✔Flowering Pollination or Anthesis - ✔✔Pollination and fertilization
Embryo and endosperm begin to form immediately after fertilzation
This stage might be difficult to identify in barley and oats, why?
Continue fungicide application vs. FHB
In warmer weather this stages happen in 1-2days
✔✔Milk Development - ✔✔Early kernel formation occurs during this stage.
The developing endosperm starts as a milky fluid that increases in solids as the milk
stage progresses.
Kernel size increases rapidly during this stage.
✔✔Dough Development - ✔✔Kernel formation is complete
Kernel accumulates most of its dry weight
The developing kernel is physiologically at the hard dough stage even though it still
contains approximately 30% water.
✔✔Critical growth stages - ✔✔Adaptive mechanisms
Optimize growth + Deal with environmental stresses
Breeding: Selects for increased yield + adaptation
Understanding of how plants respond to environmental stresses at different growth
stages can assist in the assessment of crop condition and production potential
throughout the growing season.
✔✔Yield Components - ✔✔Crop yield is the biological and mathematical product of the
components of yield.
Grain yield = Nf x Ns x Ws
Where:
Nf = number of florets.
Ns = number of seeds.
,Ws = weight per seed.
✔✔Domestication - ✔✔It is the outcome of a selection process that leads to increased
adaptation of plant and animals to cultivation or rearing and utilization by humans.
✔✔Domestication syndrome - ✔✔Similar set of traits has been selected during
domestication:
Adaptation to cultivation
desirability of human consumption and use
✔✔Domesticated cereals Trait selection: - ✔✔More diverse environment and have a
wilder geographic range
Brittle rachis
Uniform maturity
Low seed dormancy
✔✔Parts of the Disease Triangle - ✔✔Host
Pathogen
Environment
✔✔Fusarium seedling blight
Fusarium crown rot - ✔✔-Incidence:
Can be carried on seed or in crop debris
Seed rots or seedlings are killed before emergence
Poor stand establishment, non-uniform emergence, "gaps" or missing plants
-Symptoms:
Seedlings are stunted and yellow
Crown, roots or lower stem have a brown to red-brown rot.
Older plants - reduction in #/ size of tillers that mature prematurely with white and
shriveled heads.
✔✔Fungicide seed treatment - ✔✔Use combination of fungicides - no one fungicide is
effective against all these diseases:
seed rots
seedling blights
seed-borne septoria
seed-borne Fusarium seedling blight
seed-borne dwarf bunt
common bunt
loose smut
✔✔Leaf, stem, head and grain disease - ✔✔Tan spot/RS
FHB/FDK
Rusts
Loose smut
, Common bunt
BP/SM
Streak mosaic virus
Others...
✔✔Tan spot/ Red smudge - ✔✔Tan spot has been increasing in AB as a result of
reduced tillage
Barley and oats more resistant than wheat
✔✔Tan Spot Pathogen Life Cycle - ✔✔Rain splash moves conidia up plant causing
reinfection
Leaf spotting symptoms
At the end of season pseudothecia develops
Overwinters as mycelium/pseudothecia on crop debris
Primary infection from conidia and ascospores
✔✔Tan Spot Management - ✔✔Crop rotation: Include non-host crops:
other cereals, corn, soybeans and alfalfa.
Residue management
✔✔Fusarium head blight (FHB)
Fusarium damaged kernels (FDK - ✔✔-Incidence:
Severe outbreaks - warm and wet weather at the flowering to soft-dough stages.
Mycotoxins
-Symptoms:
Bleached heads 3-5 days after infection
Salmon-orange to pink ring of spores at the base of the spikelet or in the crease of the
kernel
FDK are usually shrunken, wrinkled and light in weight
✔✔Leaf Rust - ✔✔
✔✔Stem Rust - ✔✔
✔✔Stripe Rust - ✔✔
✔✔Stripe Rust Life Cycle - ✔✔Stem rust needs alternate host common barberry - More
common in ON
Stripe rust does not require an alternate host to complete its life cycle.
✔✔Stripe Rust Management - ✔✔Use tolerant varieties(co-evolution plant-pathogen)
Spraying before stripe rust reaches 5%of leaf area on the flag leaf (Australia studies)
Seed treatment
Floiar fungicide application
Crop rotation - Breaks "green bridge" effect
