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High Yield with Less Rainfall: Corn and Soybean in Illinois in 2022

  • February 17, 2023

Every crop year brings its own set of challenges during the growing season. The story of the 2022 growing season in Illinois was one of dry weather and crop stress at times and in some places, but good to great yields anyway. How did this happen?
Growing season weather and crop conditions
April was not a wet month, but it was wet enough and cool enough to delay planting; by May 1, only 7 percent of the corn and 5% of the soybean crops were planted.…

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Evaluating Yield Response of Biological Seed Treatments in Soybean – 2022 Illinois Project Update

  • January 24, 2023

Biological seed treatment is a growing market in the U.S., with several new products being available to growers every year. These products are marketed to increase grain yield and return on investment by the action of a single or a mix of plant-beneficial microbes (e.g., arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, N-fixing bacteria, and P-solubilizing microbes). Given high commodity prices, growers are interested in understanding the benefits of applying biological products to the seed. In 2022, we evaluated nine commonly marketed biological seed treatment products at two locations in Illinois.…

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Fertilizing with High-Priced P and K

  • October 21, 2022

As the 2022 season winds down, farmers are thinking about their fertility program for the 2023 growing season. While fertilizer prices have declined since spring, fertilizer prices remain high, and fertilizer costs are significantly higher than a year ago (farmdoc daily, 12:148). With continued high fertilizer prices, making every pound of fertilizer count is essential. The most important thing to be as efficient as possible is reviewing a few principles related to soil fertility.…

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Introducing Giovani Preza Fontes, Field Crops Extension Agronomist

  • October 19, 2022

I am pleased to introduce myself as the new Assistant Professor & Field Crops Extension Agronomist with the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. I’m a U of I alum and am thrilled to be back in Illinois to serve U of I students and agricultural stakeholders through teaching, research, and extension.
I was born and raised in Midwestern Brazil, in the state of Mato Grosso (the top soybean producer in Brazil, with ~27.4 million acres planted in 2021/22).…

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