It is the time of the year when farmers and farmland owners begin the process of renegotiating cash rent leases for the next growing season. In Illinois, about 75% of all farmland is owned by non-farming land owners, and nearly 2/3's of those acres are cash rented in some form. This results in...
The month of May has given local farmers wet, soggy and cool soils with the result being fields with uneven stands of corn and soybeans. Cool, wet soils slow the germination and emergence of plants, which leads to increased seed rots, seedling blights, occurrences of insect damage, nutrient...
Since 2011, I have been planting cover crops and I have grown different types: spring oats and radish; cereal rye; and cereal rye with rapeseed. I like cereal rye and we grow 250+ bushel per acre corn after cereal rye. It can be done. Why do I like Cereal Rye? In an effort to keep my costs as low...
The 2017 Illinois Cooperative Agricultural Pest Survey Program has started and cooperators are reporting high captures of Black Cutworm moths and True Armyworm moths in their pheromone traps. Recent articles in the Purdue University Pest &...
If farming was baseball and Team Herbicides was at bat against the weed Team of Amaranths, then right now, there are two strikes against Herbicides. A new report from the University of Illinois Plant Clinic bears this out. This has weed scientists across the Midwest very concerned and it should...
The Worker Protection Standards (WPS) established specific requirements for employers to follow in order to reduce the potential for worker exposure to pesticides. New revisions to these standards went into effect January 2, 2017. They will give farm workers health protections similar to those...
On November 9, 2016, the USEPA approved the use of XtendiMax with VaporGrip Technology starting in 2017 on Roundup Ready 2 Xtend Soybeans. This is a new formulation of dicamba herbicide that promises to have low volatility. A new tool to combat the tough to control weeds, such as tall waterhemp and...
The soybean crop in our area is tall and full of pods. Statewide the weekly USDA NASS soybean progress report is showing one of the best looking crops in the past 20 years with 79% of the Illinois' soybean...
Recently I have been noticing a growing number of local corn fields are showing "top dieback" or the death of the top leaf (or leaves) of the corn plant. This can happen due to several causes. The cause that is worrying me and that I am noticing is a few scattered fields caused by Anthracnose. If...
Currently our corn and soybean crops look very good and the commodity traders at the Board of Trade seem to know this as well. New crop corn and soybean prices have fallen since their recent mid-June highs - $0.80 for corn and $1.30 for soybeans.As far as crop issues: Corn is looking good,...
