Does anybody have an online resource or any tricks of the trade to learn to identify crops? I'm in the Pacific Northwest and we have probably 30-40 different crops, if not more growing around the same time of year.

That's one of the great "ojt" parts of the job!
Just keep looking at different stages of growth in flight and four years later you'll have it whipped.
Don't get complacent about being sure of where you are on the map. If you're in a block of pivots with no major landmarks you can count sections or even individual pivots from one direction and the other to make sure you're at the right one.
There is still almost always something identifiable on the map, especially if it's a Google earth map or the like instead of just black lines on a white sheet of paper.
You could also preload all of the Lat-Longs into your GPS for each job. I'd go for the center of each pivot or field.
Of course a shape file of each field to be worked preloaded to your PCM data card is even better. Just hope the shape file maker has their stuff together.
If you have some fields (like spuds) that you're going to be spraying more than once if you're running a SATLOC Airstar or above (or many of the other GPS's as well) you could mark each A-B line as you pop it and catalog it in a notebook and the map. Then when that field comes back around you can just return to the mark number. If the wind is the same you might set a little offset in the pattern menu so that if you have a dead spot in the pattern it won't be in the same place twice. If the wind is different not too big of a deal. I think at one point in unfamiliar country I had a catalog of around 65 mark numbers for repetitive fields. I'd just mark the maps from my notebook before I left in the morning. You can also use a grease pencil to make notes on the side windows. Just don't let the crew clean the windows until you say so.
Hopefully that will help keep you going in the right direction in the meantime of fine tuning your in the air crop identification skills. Good luck.

Get in a car with somebody who knows and ride around, look at how it's planted, rows, beds and spacing or broadcast, pay attention to the color, yea it's green but there are a lot of different kinds of green

Is there that many types of crops out there??? I was talking to a operator in Kansas and he said he hated hiring pilots that had no idea what they were spraying. I’m farm raised but I’m kind of worried now. Is there a good book to look up or would it be best just to Google NW crops and stages if plant life and start learning them? Also I mean most plants are easy to identify but is there anything that just gets you head spinning that makes you second guess yourself.

CN is on to the ojt part for you. Specific crop field differences and SHADES of green.
When you're done it'll help you understand your wife better when she paints a room in taupe. Used to be tan when I was a kid, oh well. Subtle differences.

Ditto on the OJT thing. That's what that first year is for. You can google your brains out and it might help a little but you need to get out there and see with your own eyes. I don't think it will be that difficult once you get a good idea of what they are growing in your area. I think produce can be a little challenging at first but then again once you learn the differences in how the different crops are grown i.e. bed size, etc. it will click right along for you. I think where Kansas is concerned, it aint real hard to tell wheat from corn. You are deffinetly on the right track for being concerned about crop identification, and wanting to be familiar with what you are spraying. Educating yourself in these factors will help you a lot and could very well save you a lot of trouble someday down the line. Always positive ID what you're about to spray before you start! It is not uncommon to have a map marked wrong or finding yourself one block off. Good on ya!
Best of luck!

Wow. Around here there are only about 6-8 crops that are regularly planted.

Last year cdtwade ran a tee shirt give away on a crop/picture/ID contest post. I thought it was a pretty cool deal, and might do it again if anyone is interested.

Take care, Rob

I'm interested!

yes i am ready