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Fall Nitrogen

  • October 19, 2022

Harvest in Illinois continues to lag some, with 47% of the corn crop and 55% of the soybean crop harvested by October 16. The dry weather continues this week, which should allow harvest to progress. The projected Illinois corn yield for 2022 increased to 210 bushels per acre in the October crop production report from NASS. Projected soybean yield stayed at 64 bushels per acre.
As harvest progresses the focus to fall application of nitrogen fertilizer,…

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Why are the Corn and Soybean Crops Drying So Slowly?

  • October 5, 2022

As corn approached maturity in early September, warm temperatures and forecasts for dry weather had us looking forward to an early start to harvest for the 2022 corn crop, and a slightly delayed but rapid movement towards getting soybeans harvested as well. Instead, both crops have languished, with corn only 63% mature and 13% harvested, and only 10% of the soybean crop harvested by October 2.
The first thing that comes to mind as an explanation for the slow drying is the cool weather in recent weeks.…

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A Simple to Understand Variable Cash Rent Lease

  • September 23, 2022
  • In this interview, Gary Schnitkey outlines a simple variable cash rent agreement. It sets the minimum rent $100 below the USDA average, the maximum $!00 above that average, and adds a yield factor of  32% of the corn yield income or 43% of the soybean yield income to the minimum for central and northern Illinois. Those factors differ in southern Illinois.

read the farmdoc Daily article

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Illinois Crops Update 9/9/2022

  • September 9, 2022

Nick Seiter, Extension Field Crops Entomologist, University of Illinois
Second-generation bean leaf beetle adults have been emerging over the last few weeks; pod scarring has been an issue in some areas over the last two years. Consider scouting your R6 beans, particularly in fields that you expect to mature late. Remember it takes a lot of beetles and a lot of this sort of damage to reduce yield and/or quality. The beetles do not directly feed on the seed,…

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Considerations as the 2022 Soybean Crop Approaches Maturity

  • September 8, 2022

Planting of the 2022 Illinois soybean crop began a little later than normal, and ended ahead of normal (Figure 1). Although summer temperatures were a little higher than normal, the onset and pace of flowering (“blooming”) and podsetting lagged behind what we would have expected based on planting progress. This is unusual Given that there was unusually cool weather in July. The most likely explanation is that the dry weather held back both vegetative and reproductive development to some extent.…

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Sep 6 | USDA Weekly Crop Progress State Reports

  • September 6, 2022

USDA reported on September 6, 2022 that 92% of the corn had reached the dough stage, 63% was dented, and that 15% had reached maturity. The condition of the corn crop was 54% good to excellent the same as the previous week.
94% of the soybeans have set pods, 10% are dropping leaves, and the condition of crop is 57% good to excellent the same as last week and last year.
Here are weekly crop progress updates from the states of Iowa,…

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Dectes stem borer survey

  • September 6, 2022

Similar to last year, we will conduct a survey for dectes stem borer stem tunneling in Illinois over the next several weeks, and are looking for volunteers to help us monitor fields. If you are interested in scouting some of your fields for dectes stem borer, send me an email (nseiter@illinois.edu) and I will provide you our sampling protocol/data sheet. Basically, it involves splitting 25 soybean stems per field between R6 and R8 and counting the number of tunnels and larvae.…

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Illinois Crops Update 9/2/2022

  • September 3, 2022

Nick Seiter, Extension Field Crops Entomologist, University of Illinois
Second-generation bean leaf beetle adults have been emerging over the last few weeks; pod scarring has been an issue in some areas over the last two years. Consider scouting your R6 beans, particularly in fields that you expect to mature late. Remember, it takes a lot of beetles and a lot of this sort of damage to reduce yield and/or quality. The beetles do not directly feed on the seed,…

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Considerations as the 2022 Corn Crop Approaches Maturity

  • September 1, 2022

The 2022 Illinois corn crop was planted about two weeks later than normal, but slightly above-normal temperatures this summer have helped move crop development along (Figure 1); the crop is only a few days behind normal as it reaches late grainfilling stages and maturity. With the forecast for warm weather to continue into September, we can expect the majority of the crop to reach maturity by mid-September.
One helpful tool to help track development and maturity in corn is the corn GDD tool located at https://mygeohub.org/groups/u2u/purdue_gdd.…

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Illinois Crops Update 8/26/22

  • August 26, 2022

Nick Seiter, Field Crops Entomology Specialist, University of Illinois
I conducted a survey along the northwestern border of Illinois (roughly Quincy to Galena) for the potentially invasive soybean gall midge; we didn’t find it, and have never observed it in Illinois, so that’s good news. What I did see in that part of the state was (1) more stink bugs than I’m used to seeing up there; (2) several isolated areas with spider mites damage (some of this was old damage,…

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