Illinois Crop Update | May 29, 2026
Steve Brand – Commercial Ag Specialist
DeKalb County
Soil Conditions: Mildly Dry (soil is drier than normal, plant growth may have slowed)
This will be a quick report as there is not too much to report since last week. Most fields have emerged in both corn and soy. I’ve seen fields for corn varying from about to emerge to V2 pushing V3. Soybeans are in a similar boat between emerging in fields to 2nd trifoliate. One thing with soybeans is some fields, we are seeing staggered and uneven emergence and I’m attesting that to the dry conditions we are seeing. The beans should go out of this, especially if we can get a timely rain in the near future.
Speaking of dry conditions, we are continuing to see dry and sunny weather. Not much rain in the forecast but the uptick in temperature has been nice considering the cool April and May we have experienced up until last week. Crops should start making some major stage jumps with the heat units being put into the dirt.
One last note I saw across multiple fields was early weed pressure. We are seeing some early breakthroughs with our delays in planting. This should be something to monitor and keep in mind for when early post emergence herbicides go out, as they will have some significant growth by then.
Thanks all until next week, look forward to seeing you all then!
Russ Higgins – Commercial Agriculture Educator
Grundy County
Soil Conditions: Near Normal
A warm and mostly dry week for growing crops (and weeds). Several mid to high eighty degree days pushed corn from V3 last week to V5. At V5, all of the embryonic leaves and ears have been initiated in the corn plant, and its growing point (meristem) will soon be above ground. The warm weather also pushed the soy crop, last week a no-till soy field at VE has reached nearly V1 with the first set of trifoliates unfurling. I would be remiss if I did not share that the great growing weather also benefitted weeds as well. Several species, especially Waterhemp are matching the crops quickened growth. In the region most planting has finished and farmers are taking advantage of the rain free forecast to harvest the first hay cutting.
Over the years I have made numerous trips from Grundy County to the University of Illinois campus, my most frequent route includes a stretch of Route 47 straight south to Interstate 74. Yesterday I made the trip and wanted to share my windshield observations. I noted several agronomy practices that seem to be picking up in frequency, they include sidedressing corn with liquid nitrogen, no-tilling soy into a standing cereal rye cover crop, and a growing number of winter wheat acres in rotation. It will be interesting to follow these fields and practices as the growing season progresses.
Talon Becker – Commercial Agriculture Specialist
Champaign County
Soil Conditions: Near Normal
The southern half of Champaign County has received more rain in the past month than the north half of the county and is therefore just a bit behind in overall crop progress. As I conducted my survey on Tuesday afternoon, the majority of fields had emerged crop, but most were still in early growth stages with few fields beyond V4 for either corn or soybean. The few wheat fields I saw were in the later stages of flowering (Feekes 10.5.2 – 10.5.4) or just moving into ripening (Feekes 11.1). Dryer conditions this past week have allowed for planting to continue and near completion in that part of the county. I saw several areas of fields that were drowned out and have been replanted or will soon need a replant, particularly in the southeast part of the county, but these areas were generally small and not too widespread. So far, the forecast for next week is looking dry and a bit warmer, which should help most farmers finish up planting and POST herbicide applications on early planted fields.
