cropCENTRAL | Field Crop Production Resources

Biological seed treatment is a growing market in the U.S., with several new products being available to growers every year. These products are marketed to increase grain yield and return on investment by the action of a single or a mix of plant-beneficial microbes (e.g., arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, N-fixing bacteria, and P-solubilizing microbes). Given high commodity prices, growers are interested in understanding the benefits of applying biological products to the seed. In 2022, we evaluated nine commonly marketed biological seed treatment products at two locations in Illinois.…

Welcome to IFES 2023.  That’s right.  The Illinois Farm Economics Summit has moved to January.
The members of the farmdoc team from the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Economics and University of Illinois Extension will be holding a series of three Illinois Farm Economics Summit meetings to help producers understand the past year and plan for the next.
Join us for a long waited return to in person IFES meetings!
Click Here to Register
Registration
Registration is $80 online,…

i-Hotel & Conference Center
1900 S First Street
Champaign, Illinois 61820
Monday, November 21, 2022
Register at farmassetsconference.com

This year’s University of Illinois Farm Assets Conference will be held in-person at the i-Hotel in Champaign, Illinois on Monday, November 21, 2022. Please plan to spend the day with the farmdoc Team, industry specialists, WILLAg commodity analysts, and U of I crop scientists as we explore topics that directly impact the farm.…

As the 2022 season winds down, farmers are thinking about their fertility program for the 2023 growing season. While fertilizer prices have declined since spring, fertilizer prices remain high, and fertilizer costs are significantly higher than a year ago (farmdoc daily, 12:148). With continued high fertilizer prices, making every pound of fertilizer count is essential. The most important thing to be as efficient as possible is reviewing a few principles related to soil fertility.…

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,…

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.…

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,…