cropCENTRAL | Field Crop Production Resources

Label Changes for XtendiMax, Engenia, and FeXapan

  • November 10, 2017

  • Aaron Hager

On October 13, the United States Environmental Agency (EPA) issued several amendments to the XtendiMax, Engenia, and FeXapan labels that will impact all purchases and applications of these products in 2018 and beyond.  These amendments can be summarized as:
1) XtendiMax, Engenia, and FeXapan are now restricted use products (RUP), permitting only certified applicators to purchase and/or apply these products.
2) Prior to applying these products in 2018, applicators must complete dicamba or auxin-specific training.  Two of the labels further specify training will be required annually.…

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Timing Fall Nitrogen

  • October 19, 2017

  • Emerson Nafziger

The substantial rain that fell over central and northern Illinois between October 5 and 15 mostly soaked into the soil that was dried out by crop water use, and harvest has moved back to full speed in most areas. With harvest, thoughts turn to application of fall ammonia in central and northern Illinois. Almost everyone is on board with waiting until soil temperatures are at or below 50 degrees before applying ammonia. Cool soil (along with use of nitrification inhibitor) lowers the rate of nitrification,…

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Weed Seed Destructor Field Demonstration Reminder

  • October 5, 2017

  • Aaron Hager

Here is a great opportunity to see a novel weed management tool!  Dr. Adam Davis, USDA/ARS weed ecologist at the University of Illinois, will host a field demonstration of the Harrington Seed Destructor (HSD) on October 12.  The HSD will be run several times during the tour, so please attend even if you are not able to arrive exactly at 1:00 p.m.  The following news release, written by Lauren Quinn, provides more details about the field demonstration.…

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Using the N rate calculator

  • September 27, 2017

  • Emerson Nafziger

A group of people who work on nitrogen fertilizer met in 2004 to talk about an alternative to the yield-goal-based N recommendation system that had been in widespread use for some three decades. The main concern with the yield-goal-based system was that, as corn yields increased over time, N rate trials were showing that the amount of fertilizer N needed to maximize yields was not going up as fast as yields. On the other hand, the amount of fertilizer N needed on lighter soils,…

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Issues as Harvest Approaches

  • September 16, 2017

  • Emerson Nafziger

It is looking like at least some harvest surprises may be positive after an up-and-down 2017 season in Illinois. The September 1 yield predictions released by the USDA this week are for Illinois corn yield to average 189 bushels per acre, up a bushel from the August 1 estimate. The soybean yield estimate is unchanged at 58 bushels per acre. Both would be outstanding after the tough start to the year and dry weather at times over much of the state.…

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New Grain Phosphorus and Potassium Numbers

  • September 7, 2017

  • Emerson Nafziger

Corn and soybean take up relatively large amounts of phosphorus (P) and potassium (K), and much of this P and K ends up in the grain that is taken off the field during harvest. In order to keep soil nutrient levels from dropping over time, the amounts removed need to be replaced by applying fertilizer or manure.
In order to know how much nutrient a crop removes, we need to know how much there is in a bushel of harvested grain.…

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Increased Insect Densities Reflected in Annual Corn and Soybean Survey

  • August 28, 2017

  • Kelly Estes

 
Thirty-six counties representing the nine crop reporting districts were surveyed at the end of July/beginning of August as part of our annual statewide corn and soybean survey. The surveys were performed by sampling five corn and five soybean fields per county. For the past several years (2011, 2013–2017), surveys in corn and soybean fields have been conducted with the goal of estimating densities of common insect pests. The estimates provided in this article should not be considered a substitute for scouting individual fields and making informed pest management decisions—even areas of the state that appear to be at low risk could have contained fields with high densities of a given insect pest.…

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The Dicamba Dilemma in Illinois: Facts and Speculations

  • July 18, 2017

  • Aaron Hager

Only a short time ago, many agricultural professionals were optimistic Illinois would somehow be “spared” the incidents of off-target damage caused by dicamba that continue to plague several states to our south.  The recent preponderance of evidence (observations made traveling the state, stories on social media, an increasing number of pesticide misuse complaints filed with the Illinois Department of Agriculture (IDOA), etc.), suggests otherwise.  Instances of soybean demonstrating symptoms of exposure to dicamba have greatly increased over the past two weeks and it’s nearly certain the number of affected acres will continue to rise. …

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Join us for the Ewing Agronomy Field Day on Thursday, July 27, 2017

  • July 10, 2017

  • Nathan Johanning

The University of Illinois Extension will host the Ewing Demonstration Center Agronomy Field Day on Thursday, July 27, 2017 at 9 a.m.  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 research in southern Illinois, including cover crop trials on corn and soybeans, nitrogen management in corn, weed management in soybean, and our continuous no-till field,…

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Crunch time for corn

  • July 3, 2017

  • Emerson Nafziger

While the record will show that corn planting progressed at a more or less normal rate this spring in Illinois, wet, cool conditions that developed after nearly half of the crop had been planted resulted in a great deal of replanting, especially in the flat-soil areas of Illinois. Some fields damaged by water and some that were too wet to plant before late May likely were planted to soybeans instead of corn. The June 30 acreage report shows Illinois corn acreage dropping by 500,000 from 2016 to 2017 (to 11.1 million acres) and soybean acreage increasing by 290,000 acres,…

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