cropCENTRAL | Field Crop Production Resources

You can also read the article in Portuguese and Spanish
The first half of April has been a little cooler than normal, with a very wide range in rainfall totals, from an inch or more below normal in northwestern Illinois to 6-8 inches above normal in south-southeastern Illinois. There is some rain in the forecast over the next week, but some progress in fieldwork and planting is likely. While it’s too early to consider planting in wet soil,…

WILLAg.org is home to University of Illinois Extension radio programming produced in cooperation with Illinois Public Media. It includes daily radio programming from the  8:55am Opening Market Report to the Commodity Market Summary at 4:32pm. These all air on WILL AM580 which can be tuned in across much of the states of Illinois and Indiana. The website, willag.org, hosts much of the programming, too. It also includes a combined Illinois Extension farm news feed from the crop scientists,…

We had a bit of a calmer weather week as we settled into April. Average temperatures this week ranged from the high 30s to the mid-50s, between 2 and 5 degrees below normal. April to date has been 1 to 4 degrees cooler than normal as well, following a top 10 warmest March on record statewide. In fact, last month was the warmest March in Illinois since 2012.

We’ve gotten a better picture of the precipitation and flooding across southern Illinois from last week’s storms.…

You can also read the article in Portuguese and Spanish
The month of March in Illinois was 4-5 degrees warmer and 1-2 inches lower in precipitation than normal. At Champaign, 170 growing degree days (GDD) accumulated in March, and less than 2 inches of rain fell from March 10 through the end of the month. The dry weather had fields in some places dry enough to work and plant around the middle of March,…

Insect trapping season is here!  We are still looking for cooperators to monitor both black cutworm and true armyworm traps in April and May. These early spring storms have already brought black cutworm moths north. We’d love to get some more traps out and are especially needing cooperators in southern and northern Illinois. Traps and lures are provided.

Requirements for trapping:

• Set up traps provided.
• Check traps regularly. Ideally, we’d like traps to be checked every other day to help accurately identify significant moth flights,

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