cropCENTRAL | Field Crop Production Resources

The on-line registration site is open for the 2013 AGMasters Conference. The conference will take place December 2 and 3 at the i Hotel and Conference Center, Champaign, Illinois. The program will begin with a general session that features five outstanding speakers who will cover a broad range of topics that relate to agricultural production and the environment. Following the opening session, participants will be able to select eight of sixteen specialized workshop topics of most interest to them.…

The University of Illinois Extension will host its annual Ewing Demonstration Center Fall field day on Thursday September 12, 2013 at 9 a.m. at the farm in Ewing.  The farm is located north of the Ewing grade school on north Ewing Road.  The 911 address is 16132 N. Ewing Rd; Ewing, IL 62836.  Watch for signs.
The ongoing research this year consists of a Liberty Soybean plot, insecticide/fungicide trial on soybeans, treated vs. untreated double crop soybeans,…

Each year, the performance of corn rootworm products (Bt hybrids and planting-time soil insecticides) are evaluated in several trials at University of Illinois Education and Research Centers located near DeKalb, Monmouth, Perry, and Urbana. The experiments are conducted in plots that were planted to a trap crop (late-planted corn, interplanted with pumpkins) the previous year. A trap crop system is used to help ensure greater levels of rootworm pressure from year to year. In 2013, the level of root pruning in three of the locations,…

On August 26, Joe Spencer an entomologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey, and I traveled to Livingston and Kankakee counties and confirmed significant western corn rootworm larval injury in first-year cornfields that had been planted to Bt rootworm hybrids (VT Triple PRO RIB – expresses the Cry3Bb1 protein). The fields in question were brought to our attention by Bryan Johnston, Cabery Fertilizer, Cabery, Illinois. Bryan indicated that many first-year Bt cornfields in the area had severe root pruning and lodging.…

Recently, statewide surveys of insects in corn and soybean fields were conducted in 28 counties across Illinois. The surveys were performed by sampling five corn and five soybean fields (randomly selected) per county during two periods (August 1 through 6, and August 14 through 16). In each cornfield, 20 consecutive plants were examined for western corn rootworm adults. In soybeans, 100 sweeps were taken (at least 12 rows from the field edge) per field. Densities of western corn rootworm adults exceeded the 0.75 per plant (continuous corn) or 0.5 per plant (first-year corn) beetle thresholds during the August 1 to August 6 time frame in the following counties: Christian (0.91 adults per plant),…