Weather, weeds, and market wins

Welcome to another outstanding in the field. I am Doug Gucker, Extension commercial ag educator in East Central Illinois, and it is the first week of July. June was a busy month weather wise. As of the end of June, Illinois had 178 confirmed tornadoes. In the month of June alone, Illinois had 421 severe weather events.

The Illinois soybean crops are looking good across Central and Eastern portions of Illinois. There are exceptions where fields have been flooded or hit with severe weather damage. Wheat harvest is all but wrapped up with double crop soybean planting progressing very rapidly. We have good soil moisture.

Soybeans vary from the r one to r three growth stages, blooming to beginning pod. Weed control is generally excellent except in late planted fields with poor pre plant weed control. To further exacerbate the problems with the same fields were often delayed in their post emergent herbicide applications due to wet field conditions. So many fields have been sprayed after the optimum time. So far, leaf diseases and insect feeding has been minimal.

I expect this to change with our current pattern of foggy, dewy mornings creating a perfect environment for leaf diseases. Area cornfields vary from approaching VT to r one, approaching tasseling to silking. No silk clipping was found, but that may change over time as Japanese beetle emergence is currently going on. I did a few root digs, and the root feeding was minor to nonexistent. It was interesting to see the difference in corn root length between a field that had been cover cropped with roots measuring 30 inches and the more typical non cover crop field with roots measuring 18 inches.

As I am seeing in the soybean fields, cornfields are currently not showing much in the way of leaf disease symptoms, but I expect that to change in the next week or two. As mentioned before, our current pattern of foggy, dewy mornings is very conducive to leaf diseases. Other good news for farmers has been the recent decline in fuel and fertilizer prices with the reopening of the Strait Of Hormuz. US corn exports are running higher than last year and demand is still strong. The US has suspended tariffs on Moroccan phosphate imports which should lead to lower prices for farmers.

The US and China are actively targeting mutual trade tariff reductions on agricultural products while negotiating reciprocal trade, which should be good news for soybean exports in the future. And remember, if you or someone you know is suffering from mental health stress, there is help available at the Illinois Extension Farm Mental Health website @go.illinois.eduforwardslashfarmmentalhealth or for immediate help call 180273 talk which is 8255, or text home at 741741. Thank you for listening, and have a good week.