As if Iowa soybean growers don’t have enough to worry about, now there’s a new pest making itself known. The soybean gall midge has been spotted in western Iowa, along with Nebraska and parts of South Dakota and Minnesota.

The soybean gall midge is not just new to farmers; it’s new to scientists, a fact that offers little hope of a quick solution to the problem. First identified in Nebraska in 2011, it was in South Dakota by 2015 and confirmed in 12 Iowa counties in 2018.

“This appears to be a new species that hasn’t been seen anywhere else in the...