In January I posted about the large project we are part of, funded by the North Central Soybean Research using soybean checkoff funds, to gather information on some 500 soybean fields in Illinois for each crop year from 2014 through 2017. The response has not been as enthusiastic as I had hoped, so I’m again calling for help on this. With 10 million acres of soybean in Illinois, 500 fields is less than a quarter of a percent of fields.…
Newer and longer-term partnerships between personnel in Illinois and personnel in Missouri and Iowa have resulted in several bi-state crops conferences to be held during January 2017 in Western Illinois or Eastern Iowa.
Friday, January 6, 2017: Bi-State Crop Advantage Conference, Burlington, IA, 8:30 AM – 4:00 PM
Location: Comfort Suites, 1708 Stonegate Center Drive, Burlington, IA.
Hosts: Iowa State University and University of Illinois Extension
More Information: Click here to access the flier.…
The 2016 cropping season was a good one in Illinois, with planting a little ahead of normal and good May moisture and temperatures to get the crop off to a good start. June was warm and, in most parts of Illinois, drier than normal; parts of western Illinois received less than an inch of rainfall for the month. Temperatures and rainfall returned to normal in July and August, though there was the usual variability from region to region,…
Corn leaf samples from LaSalle county have been positively identified by the University of Illinois Plant Clinic to be infected with Tar Spot Phyllachora maydis. Commercial Agriculture Extension Educator Russ Higgins found the disease while field scouting. The fungal leaf blight was identified in numerous northern Illinois and northern Indiana counties in 2015.
Tar Spot has distinctive signs and symptoms. The fungal fruiting body, called an ascomata, looks like an actual spot of tar on the leaf. …
Extension Staff Join with other Agencies to Survey Illinois for New Corn Disease 2016: The USDA just announced the presence of Bacterial leaf streak in corn, as determined by recent surveys of the Corn Belt states. In Illinois, a cooperative survey was organized with APHIS-PPQ (Animal Plant Health Inspection Service), IDA (Illinois Department of Agriculture), CAPS (Illinois Natural History Survey’s Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey) and University of Illinois Extension to provide a rapid response to determine distribution.…
Although my post last week reflected the current optimism about yield prospects for the 2016 Illinois corn crop, there has been some recent discussion about unfilled ear tips and whether or not this might mean lower yields than the appearance of the crop leads us to believe.
Corn ears with kernels missing at the outer end of the ear are often said to have “tip-back.” The term is a little obscure, but the idea is that the end of the cob has been exposed by lack of kernels there,…
We invite everyone to the University of Illinois Extension Ewing Agronomy Field Day Thursday, July 28, 2016 starting at 9 a.m. at the Ewing Demonstration Center. Every growing season presents challenges to production, and this year is no exception! We are happy to host this summer field day to share with local growers current, ongoing agronomy field research, including cover crop trials on corn and soybeans, nitrogen management in corn, soybean variety trial and row spacing study,…
High winds hit parts of central and north-central Illinois on June 22 and 23, flattening corn that was at stages V10 to V13 or so (4 to 7 feet tall.) Hail damaged leaf area in some places as well, but hail was not as widespread as wind damage.
Figure 1 shows corn completely flattened at our Monmouth Research & Education Center, following wind gusts up to 78 mph between 2:45 and 3:00 AM on June 22.…
Corn planting in Illinois has gotten into gear over the past week, with 12 percent of the state’s crop planted by April 17. That’s close to the planting pace of a year ago, and is behind the 5-year average only because that average includes 2012, when nearly half of the state’s corn crop was planted by mid-April. Illinois corn yield averaged 105 bushels per acre in 2012, while in 2014, the year with the record-high corn yield of 200 bushels,…
The University of Illinois is part of a large, multi-state research project funded by the North Central Soybean Research Program (funded by state checkoff programs) to look at effects of weather, soils, and management on soybean yields.
As part of this project, we need to gather basic information on at least 500 soybeans fields around Illinois for each of the crop years 2014 through 2017. These data will go into a large database that will be used to take a look at how management affects yields in a given soil type and with a certain weather pattern.…