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Hundreds of full-rate N trials run over the past decade in Illinois have been used to develop the N rate calculator that generates Maximum Return to Nitrogen (MRTN) N rates. While using the MRTN rate maximizes the dollar return to N, it is a lower N rate than many producers use currently. Reluctance to lower rates following years of high yields with high N rates is understandable, given that the yield-goal-based N rates used into the early 2000s called for raising N rates as yields increased.…

March rainfall ranged from about normal to an inch above normal in the northern half of Illinois to twice normal in the southern end of the state. NASS reported 1.7 days suitable for fieldwork for the week ending on April 2, and soil moisture is rated as adequate or surplus in more than 95% of the state. Up to an inch of rain fell in the first week of April, but dry weather is in the forecast,…

Illinois producers planted 650,000 acres of winter wheat in the fall of 2021 and harvested 560,000 acres in 2022, with an average yield of 79 bushels per acre. Boosted by high world wheat prices, high wheat and good doublecrop soybean yields, and dry fall weather, planted acreage for 2023 rose to 880,000 acres. That’s 45 percent higher than the average of the past ten years, and the highest planted wheat acreage in Illinois since 2008. Crop condition ratings on March 26 were good,…

Helped more than hurt overall by periods of dry weather during the season, the 2023 Illinois corn averaged 214 bushels per acre, the highest yield on record. We’ll look at some results from N fertilizer trials in 2022 and consider how we manage N for the upcoming season.
N rate
Figure 1 below shows N responses for corn following soybean in nine N rate trials in central Illinois in 2022. These are drawn using actual data points (yields at each N rate averaged over reps),…

Harvest in Illinois continues to lag some, with 47% of the corn crop and 55% of the soybean crop harvested by October 16. The dry weather continues this week, which should allow harvest to progress. The projected Illinois corn yield for 2022 increased to 210 bushels per acre in the October crop production report from NASS. Projected soybean yield stayed at 64 bushels per acre.
As harvest progresses the focus to fall application of nitrogen fertilizer,…

As corn approached maturity in early September, warm temperatures and forecasts for dry weather had us looking forward to an early start to harvest for the 2022 corn crop, and a slightly delayed but rapid movement towards getting soybeans harvested as well. Instead, both crops have languished, with corn only 63% mature and 13% harvested, and only 10% of the soybean crop harvested by October 2.
The first thing that comes to mind as an explanation for the slow drying is the cool weather in recent weeks.…

Planting of the 2022 Illinois soybean crop began a little later than normal, and ended ahead of normal (Figure 1). Although summer temperatures were a little higher than normal, the onset and pace of flowering (“blooming”) and podsetting lagged behind what we would have expected based on planting progress. This is unusual Given that there was unusually cool weather in July. The most likely explanation is that the dry weather held back both vegetative and reproductive development to some extent.…

Nearly all of Illinois received below-normal rainfall in June, with the lowest amounts found in east central Illinois. In contrast, most of the state has received above-normal rainfall in July, with very high totals in parts of southern Illinois, above-normal amounts in much of northern Illinois, and a strip of moderately below-normal rainfall that roughly follows I-74 from the Quad Cities to Danville. The US drought map from last week (July 21) has about a third of the state as abnormally dry,…