Crop Production

Soybean farmers who take a ten-minute online survey will help University of Illinois crop scientists and Extension educators to better understand how decisions are made in their farms regarding soybean management and inputs and to tailor programs and projects to improve yields and profitability.
Villamil requests that soybean farmers take the survey by April 10.
The survey is a collaborative effort between the Department of Crop Sciences in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois,…

Along with the continuing emphasis on getting soybean planted early – in late April to early May – comes the question of soybean maturity rating, and whether early planting benefits fuller- or shorter-season varieties the most.
Planting date
Figure 1 was updated with the 2014 data from our planting date trials in central and northern Illinois. The change compared to the response I showed a year ago is mostly from the large response to delayed planting at Urbana in 2014.…

In April 2014 I wrote on the topic on N fertilizer on soybeans, reporting that our research at the University of Illinois has rarely shown a benefit in yield to applying N fertilizer during the middle part of the season. But it seems that some people, perhaps reacting to testimonials of high yields after using N fertilizer in the high-yield conditions of 2014 remain convinced that adding N fertilizer “makes high yields higher.”
Of course, most producers who got high yields –…

In June with wheat harvest underway, I asked people to send in grain samples so that under an NREC-funded project we could measure P and K levels to try to sharpen up our nutrient removal numbers.
We got a few wheat samples. We also, thanks to the Illinois Soybean Association, found a way to get a good number of soybean samples to measure P and K after they are tested for protein and oil.
Our real need now is to get corn grain samples from the 2014 harvest.…

One of the speakers at the UI Agronomy Day at Urbana this past week was quoted as saying that corn producers had not planted enough plants this year to take advantage of the good growing conditions. The assertion was that 45,000 plants would have been more appropriate than 32,000 plants. Most produces are planting more than 32,000 now on more productive fields. But few are pushing populations into the mid-40,000 range, at least on a lot of acres.…