Fields near school pickup. 2 tenths of rain this morning. Need sunshine.

Last week brought a band of rain through our area with rain totals from .5″ to 4″. In the heaviest of the areas pond took 4-5 days to recede. There may be some replant in these areas. Other areas could use a half inch to aid in emergence of the last planted soybeans. Growers in Nothern Champaign and Southern Ford County postponed planting on 5/7 due to extremely hard soil conditions until after the weekend rain event passed.

Rain over the weekend through Monday was timely and provided much needed moisture. Some farmers are still working to finish planting the final fields.

Sunshine and heat, finally! Favorable growing conditions in NE Illinois. The sunshine, warmth, and needed rain gave a boost to both corn and soybean that had been slowly trying to emerge and grow. Despite concerns, I have heard few reports of emergence issues with seed sitting in cool soils for extended periods. This past weekend most areas measured between .3 to over an inch of rain. Isolated areas near Channahon and in Kankakee received 2+ inches. Soybean planting is starting to resume in the area.

Locally, we are still very dry overall. Rainfall has been very scattered with some areas having caught almost an inch, yet others not even a tenth so far. Temperatures have been moderate with highs in the 70’s to low 80’s, but some days have had a noticeable increase in humidity to more summer-like conditions. Most crops are emerged, but there are some acres left to plant. Soil moisture conditions for planting this spring have been the best I can remember for the last few years, compared with many, wet springs we have had in recent memory. The extent of the dry is starting to get concerning and most are hoping for a few inches of rain, even if they still have some acres to plant. Wheat is still looking very good, especially with the modest temperatures and dry weather. I have seen some fungicides applied earlier this week on wheat acres.

In my trip through South Central IL this past week, most fields I saw are still on the wet side. Most wheat fields are headed out and at least entering the anthesis (flowering) period. The wet soils kept the ground equipment out of many fields, but I did see at least a couple planes applying fungicide treatments.

I didn’t see much in the way of newly planted fields, and that which was planted in the last couple weeks has, for the most part, not yet emerged. That said, there were a few fields with emerged spring-planted crop. With more rain coming through this weekend, field operations will likely be delayed a bit longer in that region. But with a dry and relatively warm forecast next week, many are expecting to get back in the field.

Stand counts were taken and were really good on both corn and soybeans. There were a few patches of cereal rye that did not completely die at termination. After further inspection, we found that the seeding depth of the corn was 1 1/2 inches, which is a much shallower depth than planned.

The stands of soybeans appeared adequate for 30 inch rows. No signs of pests or other stress.

Mostly favorable growing conditions in NE Illinois. Spotty precipitation slowed some farmers who are trying to wrap up the 2023 planting season. Cooler soils slowed some soybean emergence, especially in high residue No-till fields. Those scouting soybean fields have reported some emerging soy exhibiting discolored cotyledons. Likely causes can include stressful emergence conditions, diseases, herbicide injury from pre-emergent herbicides (likely PPO-inhibiting herbicides whose injury to emerging soybeans is enhanced by cool and wet conditions). If the cotyledons have a distinctive “halo'” on the cotyledon and the soy planted was seed-treated with the fungicide fluopyram (ILeVO), the browning is the result of phytotoxicity caused by accumulation of the fungicide in the cotyledon. We encourage early season scouting but also suggest farmers observe their soybean fields for several days to a week of favorable growing conditions before making rash replant decisions. Soybean are a resilient crop that often outgrow early season issues.

We received 2 to 3 inches of rain in total over the previous weekend. This and the heat amazingly allowed the corn to break through the soil crust. Stands look so much better, but way too wet to take stand counts.