Like much of the state, conditions in Ford County are fairly wet. Standing water in fields was minimal, for the most part, most fields are at or near their holding capacity. During my transect of the southern half of the county, I saw very few emerged fields. The majority of fields are still yet to be planted, and many of those have not been sprayed or tilled yet this spring. I did see both corn and soybeans emerged in a couple fields, but still at VE/V1 and VC, respectively. There were several fields that had been recently planted prior to the last couple days of rain. Without too much more rain, those fields should come out of it okay, but that may not be in the cards, with some slight chances for rains in the local forecast over the next several days.

It seems like this will be another wet week in Pike County. Over Mother’s Day weekend, there was a lot of planting and spraying being done. It seems like most farmers around here have very few acres left and some are even finished planting for the spring. With the exception of fields planted over last weekend weekend, it appears that all other fields that are planted have emerged and appear to be doing well. This rainfall will provide adequate activation of residual herbicides to hopefully keep our fields free of weeds until post herbicide application timing.

We are slowly starting to dry out. Areas are starting to miss the higher rain totals and there are a few more areas finding the opportunity to get into the field.

Field work is just starting back up after drying enough to spray. I refuse to look at the forecast.

We are just about dry enough to begin fieldwork (again) on Mother’s Day weekend. Morningglory showed up in corn after last week’s report. Soybeans are clean. Only one cutworm moth was caught in trap and a few corn plants had wireworm injury. Next up will be spotting in soybeans in drowned out areas of various fields.

Those that were able to plant early are seeing emergence. The recent wet weather has created some planting challenges as farmers are trying to work around the stormy weather. The recent rain in west central Illinois has resulted in some standing water in fields and muddy field conditions.

The start of another growing season! Limited field activity for nearly two weeks, our most recent precipitation event on May 7th will continue this trend. Planted corn is reaching V1 and planted soybean emerging, but plenty of seed can still be found in bags. Unworked or sprayed fields are full of winter annuals including Butterweed. Reports of significant alfalfa leaf feeding in regional hay fields. In the two most recent growing seasons farmers harvested almost 100% of planted acres with few drowned out areas, that is not likely in this region in 2024.

Planting has paused due to wet conditions, but corn has started to emerge in fields that were planted earlier.

Some farms have been able to take advantage of dry pockets to get out in the field. Fields are still pretty wet this week from multiple rain events but warmer temperatures will be helpful in drying out.

Over the past week, the rainfall in my 3 counties – DeWitt, Piatt & Macon has varied from less than 0.5 inch to over 1 inch. Planting started again at the end of last week for a couple days then started again on Monday after the weekend rains.
Corn planted the week of April 10 is in V1 stage approaching V2 and soybean plants are in the unifoliate. About half the fields are planted at this time.