cropCENTRAL | Field Crop Production Resources

The first full week of April was very April-like, with temperature swings and multiple forms of precipitation.

by Trent Ford, State Climatologist
ISWS PRI University of Illinois

Average temperatures this week ranged from low 40s in northern Illinois to the low 60s in southern Illinois. Most parts of the state north of I-80 were 1 to 3 degrees cooler than normal, while the rest of the state was 1 to 5 degrees warmer than normal.…

As we prepare for the 2026 Biomass Webinar Series to kick off in July (register here), please enjoy this first in a series of posts highlighting presentations from the 2025 Biomass Webinar Series. This one is from Matt Langholtz, the lead author of the 2023 Billion Ton Report, which is the authoritative assessment of how much biomass is available to use for biofuels without affecting current food and wood use.…

You can also read the article in Portuguese and Spanish
Wheat acreage in Illinois has trended downward for much of the past 50 years, declining from about 1.5 million acres in the 1970s to an average of approximately 570,000 acres between 2015 and 2022. Acreage rebounded in more recent years, averaging nearly 750,000 acres over the past five years, with 2026 acreage estimated at 720,000. This recent increase began with increases in wheat prices following the Russian invasion of Ukraine and has been sustained by outstanding yields.…

Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed an innovative artificial intelligence method designed to mine massive amounts of drone-captured field data, revealing hidden, highly heritable genetic traits in crops.
For decades, agriculture has relied on visual cues and simple calculations to gauge plant health. The widely used Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), for example, uses just two bands of light reflectance to mathematically determine the greenness of a field. Now, an interdisciplinary team is pushing beyond these traditional boundaries.…