debugging field crop production

Steve Brand – Commercial Agriculture Specialist Dekalb County Soil Conditions: Mildly Wet (soil is wetter than normal, local vegetation is healthy) The heat wave is upon us this week bringing 90+ degree temperatures with very high humidity. After a few weeks of cooler weather and lots of precipitation, the corn and soybeans that were not waterlogged are thriving, and have jumped multiple growth stages since last week. I scouted corn fields anywhere between V5/V6 up to V10 with rapid growth from all the heat units being added into the environment.…

As our earlier planted corn begins to tassel, folks who have experienced corn leaf aphid outbreaks the last couple of years should begin scouting. This insect remains an uncommon pest; however, several hybrids were affected both during the rather large outbreak we experienced in 2024 in central Illinois and in 2025, when overall corn leaf aphid numbers were much closer to what we see in a typical year. Most pest aphids are sensitive to differences in cultivar,…

The following is a summary of the WILLAg.org content from the work week ending June 26, 2026. WILLAg.org is a partnership of Illinois Public Media and University of Illinois Extension. Its mission is to distribute regionally, nationally, and internationally information and analysis of commodity markets and agricultural weather. Agricultural Markets Synthesis The agricultural commodity markets throughout the week of June 22, 2026, experienced a distinct seasonal downtime, driven heavily by investment funds liquidating long positions of over three billion bushels across corn,…

  by Trent Ford, State Climatologist ISWS PRI University of Illinois We wrap up another week of wild weather in the prairie state. Average temperatures this week ranged from the mid-60s in northern Illinois to the mid-70s in southern Illinois, between 1 and 8 degrees below average. This week brought more beautiful evening and morning temperatures, and a few hours of chillier conditions including nighttime lows of 48 degrees in Rock Island and 52 in Champaign.…