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Principles of Soil-Applied Herbicides

  • April 15, 2025
  • Aaron Hager

Utilization of soil-applied herbicides in corn and soybean production systems continues to be a common method to achieve weed control. Early preplant, preplant incorporated, and preemergence surface are the most common types of herbicide applications to soil. Regardless of when the herbicide was applied to the soil, the effectiveness of soil-applied herbicides is governed by several factors.
The primary factor which governs the efficacy of soil-applied herbicides is having the herbicide available for uptake by the germinating weed seedling.…

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University of Illinois 2025 Weed Science Field Research Tour

  • April 15, 2025
  • Aaron Hager

The weed science program at the University of Illinois invites all weed management practitioners to our annual weed science field tour on Wednesday, June 25, at the Department of Crop Sciences field research location known as the Clem Farm, located at 1114 County Road 1200 East, Champaign. Registration begins at 8:00 a.m. and the tour will start at 9:00 a.m. Preregistration is not required, but please let us know in advance if you will be bringing a large group of participants so we can plan accordingly for meals.…

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Optimizing Corn and Soybean Seeding Rates

  • April 14, 2025
  • Giovani Preza Fontes, Emerson Nafziger

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,…

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Weekly Extension Radio Programming Review

  • April 11, 2025
  • Todd Gleason

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,…

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Apr 11 | Climate Review and Weather Forecast

  • April 11, 2025
  • Todd Gleason

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.…

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Have we missed the best planting window for 2025?

  • April 3, 2025
  • Giovani Preza Fontes, Emerson Nafziger

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,…

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Apr 04 | Climate Review and Weather Forecast

  • April 3, 2025
  • Todd Gleason

The transition from March to April brought very active weather in Illinois. Average temperatures this week ranged from the low 40s in northern Illinois to the low 60s in southern Illinois, between 2 and 8 degrees above normal. March ended between 2 and 4 degrees warmer than normal as well, which helped accelerate bloom and leafoutacross the state.
The big story this week, though, was the active storm track that brought multiple rounds – and multiple types – of severe weather across the state.…

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Cooperators Still Needed for Spring Insect Trapping

  • April 2, 2025
  • Kelly Estes

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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Mar 27 | Climate Review and Weather Forecast

  • March 28, 2025
  • Todd Gleason

Our last full week of March had very March-like weather, with average temperatures ranging from the high 30s in far northern Illinois to the low 50s in far southern Illinois, right around normal for this time of the year. March to date average temperatures have been 3 to 6 degrees warmer than normal; a top 10 warmest March on record so far for much of northern Illinois.
Another round of storms brought modest precipitation totals across the state this week,…

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Mar 21 | Climate Review and Weather Forecast

  • March 21, 2025
  • Todd Gleason

The first week of March and climatological spring was decidedly spring-like. Average temperatures ranged from the mid-30s in northern Illinois to the high 40s in southern Illinois, between 3 and 8 degrees above normal. High temperatures reached into the 60s and 70s early in the week before crashing back to the 30s and 40s. February ended 2 to 4 degrees below normal statewide, wrapping up a climatological winter season that was within 1 degree of normal statewide.…

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