Scouting from the Cab. While crop producers are encouraged to scout their corn and soybean fields throughout the entire growing season, the view of a field from the vantage point of a combine cab can be eye-opening, particularly when harvesting corn. One thing that can become...

From reports of soybean fields near St. Louis destined for mowing rather than harvest to thick lawns of waterhemp beginning to emerge from soybean fields nearer to the Northwestern Illinois Ag R&D Center, weeds are a major problem in many Illinois farm fields in 2016. What in the world is...

An hour-long webinar, scheduled to begin at 9 AM on March 2, will present the results of NREC-funded research regarding how P placement may affect loss....

To provide corn producers with a method to estimate peak corn rootworm egg hatch and when to best scout for root feeding damage, the Illinois State Water Survey's Illinois Climate Network calculates accumulated pest...

On May 17, Ryan Farmer, a student hourly worker at the Northwestern Illinois Agricultural Research and Demonstration Center (NWIARDC) collected stand count data from a demonstration trial that had been planted more than 2 months earlier. On an unseasonably warm March 8 day NWIARDC personnel decided...

Webinar: Putting a Value on Sweat Equity On Tuesday, August 23 at 9 a.m. (CDT) the Purdue Center for Commercial Agriculture will host a webinar focused on farm succession planning entitled Putting a Value on Sweat Equity in the Farm Business, which will be presented by...

Symptoms and signs of Diplodia ear mold. In the past couple of weeks, symptoms of ear mold have popped up at the Northwestern Illinois Ag R&D Center. While most fields have rows upon rows of healthy-looking husk leaves enveloping plump ears, in some fields individual ears stand...

When walking along the edges of corn and soybean fields the last couple of days, I noticed many Japanese beetles feeding on both corn and soybean. A lot of Japanese beetles (Figures). Japanese beetle ID. Japanese beetles are oval shaped and have an iridescent...

To celebrate National Farm Safety Week a series of seven webinars health and safety-related webinars will be offered by the AgriSafe™ Network, a non-profit national membership organization, represents health professionals and educators who are concerned about the health and safety of farm families...

Diplodia Symptoms and Machinery Adjustments at Harvest. Diplodia ear mold can cause lightweight kernels with a dull grey to brownish color and sometimes small black structures call pycnidia (Figure). The infected kernels are prone to breakage and can result in poor...

This article was also submitted to the Illinois AgriNews by Angie Peltier and Russ Higgins, University of Illinois Extension Educators: Last September tar spot, a corn disease that had not been previously found in the continental US, was confirmed in corn samples collected in Indiana and in...

A webinar will be held live, from 1 to 3 pm on Thursday, February 11.See the results of a five-year, multi-state research project focused on farm management practices and their potential for making corn-based agriculture more resilient. The practices provide resiliency in times of drought, reduce...

What are we seeing in the field? At the Northwestern Illinois Ag Research & Demonstration Center we are beginning to see some of the residual herbicide activity break, with weeds like giant foxtail and morning glory popping up in some fields. We are also seeing quite a bit of...

Many may remember the 2015 growing season as the one in which the weeds took over in many Western Illinois soybean (and some corn) fields. Abnormally wet weather led to saturated soils that were impassible for long periods of time before post-emergence herbicides were applied. Weeds were extra...

Join University of Illinois Extension agricultural economists for a free risk management webinar next Tuesday, February 23rd from 8 to 9 AM. This webinar will focus on: crop insurance decisions, 2015 county-level ARC payment forecasts and managing risk in 2016. Preregistration is required to...

Registration is open for the 2017 Crop Management Conferences. These regional conferences provide a forum for discussion and interaction between participants and university researchers and are designed to address a wide array of topics pertinent to crop production in Illinois: crop management, pest...

This past growing season, as part of a United Soybean Board-funded effort, personnel from Southern Illinois University, Iowa State University and University of Illinois evaluated more than 580 soybean varieties from 22 seed companies in sudden death syndrome (SDS) variety trials. The varieties that...

Western corn rootworm larvae feed on corn roots. This feeding injures corn roots, which can result in lost yield. Research has shown that for every one node of root pruned, there is an average of 15 percent yield loss. Research over the years has led to the development of multiple strategies to...

Monitoring insect populations. Insect pheromone traps are monitored throughout the growing season at the Northwestern Illinois Ag R & D Center in Monmouth. Pheromones are insect hormones that attract individuals of the opposite sex for mating purposes. In our traps a small...

Crop plants have needs that must be met in order for them to grow and reproduce. They need water, sunlight, CO2, above-ground space and some sort of matrix into which to extend their roots. Additionally, to meet the needs that are above and beyond what is provided by the seed, plants require...