URBANA, Ill. – A new tool focused on field crop production is joining the suite of University of Illinois farmdoc resources.
For more than 20 years, the farmdoc website has provided Midwestern crop and livestock producers with constant access to expertise and analysis to help better manage their operations. Dennis Bowman, Illinois Extension interim assistant dean for ag and natural resources says the new cropcentral website will further the Department of Agricultural and Consumer Environmental Science’s mission to help producers and businesses solve problems.
“Farmdoc has a tremendous reach and is really well known,” Bowman says. “Farmers would tell us how much they appreciated the website, but in the past, they couldn’t always find field crop production information.”
On the new cropcentral website university experts will discuss a wide variety of management topics including crop production, diseases, insects, field updates, soils and weeds at go.illinois.edu/cropcentral. Cropcentral will also host the electronic newsletter, the Bulletin.
“Cropcentral collects production information into a one-stop-shop,” Bowman says. “So it will be easy for farmers, educators, journalists, traders, market analysts and policy makers to find current information like crop conditions throughout the season.”
Farmdoc, short for farm decision outreach central, first went online in 1999. Ever since, the project has harnessed the power of university experts, research and resources and delivered unbiased and timely economic information and analysis.
Bowman says farmdoc’s comprehensive library of resources provides tools and information on agricultural finances, laws and taxation, farm management, and agricultural policy and wide variety of agricultural publications for farmers, extension educators, market analysts and many others in the agriculture industry across the U.S.
Over the years, the farmdoc suite of websites has grown to also include FarmDoc Daily and Farm Policy News.
SOURCE: Dennis Bowman, Interim Assistant Dean Agriculture and Natural Resources, Illinois Extension
WRITER: Emily Steele, Media Communications Coordinator, Illinois Extension
ABOUT EXTENSION: Illinois Extension leads public outreach for University of Illinois by translating research into action plans that allow Illinois families, businesses, and community leaders to solve problems, make informed decisions, and adapt to changes and opportunities.