Crop Production

After a slow start, corn and soybean planting in Illinois proceeded at a normal pace in 2022. Rainfall in May was at 85 percent of normal statewide. While we remember the very warm days from May 10-15 and a few days later in the month, the statewide May temperature was only about 2 degrees warmer than normal.
The weather during the first half of June continued the trend from May, with temperatures averaging about 2 degrees above normal,…

Corn and soybean planting progress has been slow so far in Illinois, with 7 percent of the corn crop and 5 percent of the soybean crop planted by May 1. These numbers should increase modestly by May 8, but this will not be an early-planting year. With warm temperatures returning next week, planting progress should accelerate.
Soil temperatures at the 2-inch depth over the last ten days ranged from around 60 in southern Illinois to 55 in central Illinois to 50 in northern Illinois.…

High fertilizer nitrogen prices are providing an incentive to manage N this spring with as much efficiency as possible. We’ll consider here some ways to work towards that.
Nitrogen rate: Higher corn prices are helping to counter the effect of higher N prices on N rate: if N and corn sale prices hold at current levels, MRTN rates for corn following soybean are 154 lb/acre in northern IL, 167 in central IL, and 185 in southern Illinois.…

While N fertilizer prices remain high, at around $0.90 per lb of N as anhydrous ammonia and in the vicinity of $1.00 per lb of N as UAN or urea, recent increases in the price of corn have produced moderately higher MRTN N rates from the N rate calculator. As an example, with N at $1.00 per lb and corn at $7.00 per bushel, the MRTN rate for corn following soybean in central Illinois is 167 lb N per acre,…

The 2021 cropping season in Illinois (and the Corn Belt) continues to be a story of haves, have-nots, and have-way-too-much with regard to rainfall. In the first three weeks of June, nearly all of Illinois had below-normal rainfall, and concerns about dryness increased. That ended abruptly: in the three weeks from June 25 through July 14, rainfall totals ranged from below normal in the northwestern counties to 25 to 75% above normal in southern Illinois to 100 to more than 200% above normal in central Illinois,…

March rainfall in Illinois has ranged from as much as an inch below normal in the northern third of the state, to close to normal in central Illinois, to as much as 2 to 3 inches above normal in the southern third of Illinois. This, along with some rain this week, has dampened the hope for a March start to planting in most areas. That gives us time to think about issues related to planting and early-season management.…