As high temperatures continue and rainfall remains scarce, many Illinois producers are getting concerned about prospects for the 2024 crops. While it is not very productive to ask ourselves if we should have managed tillage and planting differently, remembering how this year’s crop is faring might inform some of our decisions in the future…
Category: Crop Production
Corn and soybean after a slow start to the 2024 season
Although April-May rainfall exceeded normal amounts in Illinois by up to 50 percent in some areas, and average temperatures have exceeded normal by several degrees, the weather record fails to capture what the 2024 planting season actually looked like…

Notes on soybeans as planting gets underway
While statewide precipitation in March averaged 3.21 inches (89% of normal), we saw a clear north-south gradient within Illinois, with totals ranging from half to an inch above normal in the northern part of Illinois to as much as up to two inches below normal in the southern end of the state…

The 2023 soybean crop as the season winds down
Rainfall in the first two weeks of August recharged soil moisture across much of Illinois, but since then, the combination of low rain amounts and very high temperatures (4.7 to 8.9 degrees above average) brought on some stress during the last week of August…

The 2023 corn crop as the season winds down
Rainfall in late June and early July brought relief from very dry conditions, but soils dried out again before August 5-9 rains over most of Illinois recharged soil moisture enough to restore crop prospects for the 2023 season. The August 15 U.S. drought monitor map showed 28% of Illinois to have no drought, 57% to be abnormally dry, and 14% to be in moderate drought…

Rainfall may not completely reverse the effects of drought
Nearly all of Illinois received rainfall in the late June and early July, with amounts of 2 to 5 inches across a large part of the state (Figure 1). There is more variability than the map shows – for example, only 1.67 inches fell at Willard Airport near Champaign, not the 2.5-3” indicated on the map. But there is no doubt that the rain boosted crop prospects for 2023, and reversed the month-long decline in crop condition…

Dry weather and crop conditions in Illinois
The first two months of the 2023 growing season have been much like the first two months of the 2022 growing season, with a few key differences. The 2023 crop was planted earlier and into somewhat drier soils – some producers actually waited to plant during part of the second half of April until the weather warmed up…

Wheat and double-crop soybeans
Planted wheat acreage in Illinois increased by 35%, from 650,000 acres in 2022 to 880,000 for the crop to be harvested in 2023. Wheat acreage by county or crop reporting district is not available, but indications are that some of the additional acreage is in parts of central Illinois where wheat acreage has been limited in recent decades. ..

Thinking about crop emergence
y April 16, 10 percent of the Illinois corn crop and 4 percent of soybeans had been planted. Rainfall across Illinois is below normal so far in April, with an unprecedented 10 (of 20) days with no rainfall recorded anywhere in the state. Topsoil moisture ranges from slightly above to slightly below normal across Illinois; there are no areas of really wet or of really dry soils…

Early-season soybean management in 2023
March was a wet month across much of Illinois. Statewide precipitation averaged 4.48 inches, 1.27 inches above normal. The wet trend continued throughout the first week of April, especially in northern Illinois: more than 1.5 inches of rain fell in some places. NASS reported 1.7 and 2.5 days suitable for fieldwork for the weeks ending April 2 and April 9, respectively….