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One of the most pressing questions as planting continues into June after a very wet May is whether or not the high rainfall amounts over the past month have affected the amount of nitrogen fertilizer needed for the corn crop this year. This is a complicated question, related both to concern about how much early-applied N might be lost and to decreased yield potential from late planting that might lower the need for N. The recent price increase in corn also provides an incentive to make sure the crop gets enough N.…

Despite the fact that the “active” weather pattern gave no signs of changing over the past month, few of us thought we’d see so little planting progress by now. But here we are, with only 35% of the Illinois corn crop and 14% of the soybean crop planted by May 26. With more rain this week, we will have less than half the corn and less than a fourth of the soybeans planted before June 1 in Illinois.…

With only 9% of the Illinois corn crop planted by April 28 and with 3 to 5 inches of rain this past week in the northern half of the state, and above normal rainfall just about everywhere else, there has been little further progress. The start in 2018 wasn’t much earlier than this, but planting was very fast once it started, and we finished earlier than normal. That will not repeat in 2019. In fact, the progress report released today (May 6) shows that corn went from 9 to 10% planted over the past week (it was 68% one year ago),…

Along with colleagues from Ohio State University, we took a look recently at data from a lot of corn plant population trials in both Ohio and Illinois to see if we could come up with estimates of the value of variable-rate corn planting. This work was published in Agronomy Journal (reference is at the end of this article) and my OSU colleagues also put the findings in an Extension fact sheet, available here.…

We are starting to look for cooperators that are willing to place and monitor traps for black cutworm and true armyworm this spring and European corn borer, corn earworm, fall armyworm, and western bean cutworm this summer. We provide traps and lures. We ask cooperators to place and check traps several times a week, reporting trap catches to our site.
We will also be looking for cooperators to participate in our summer field surveys as well.…

The fall of 2018 and so far in 2019, there have been limited opportunities to apply nitrogen fertilizer. Average rainfall through the first 25 days of March ranged from a little less than normal in the northern half of Illinois to an inch or more above normal in south-central Illinois. But temperatures have averaged 3 to 4 degrees below normal, which slowed drying. There were several days in the first week of March when it was frozen on the surface and a considerable amount of P and K went on.…

Soybean Cyst Nematode is an extremely important, yield limiting pathogen of soybeans in Illinois, reducing yields an average of 1-3% across the state.  As I have written in earlier posts, sampling your fields every 3-5 years to assess SCN levels and HG types is the first step in managing this issue.  The best time to sample for SCN is after harvest in the Fall, and this can easily be added onto any samples you gather for soil nutrient testing. …

With harvest winding down in most of Illinois after another year with high to very high yields, it’s time to review some basics of fall fertilization. Neither fertilizer nor grain prices are historically high, so there’s reason to be aware of costs while making sure to cover the nutrient basics.
Nitrogen
In a webinar on October 19 organized by the Illinois Fertilizer & Chemical Association, we looked at some of the nitrogen response data that have come in so far this fall and considered what this might mean in terms of fall N management.…

Illinois corn and soybean yields in 2018 were predicted in the August 1 NASS report (released on August 10) to be 205 and 65 bushels per acre, respectively, both an all-time record for this great state. Corn yields in the U.S. were predicted at 178.4 bushels per acre, a new all-time high, and for U.S. soybean the August 1 prediction was 51.6 bushels, which is very slightly below the 2016 U.S. yield.
Trying to guess which way and how far the yield numbers will move from predicted levels is a popular pastime,…