Corn is coming along, beans are being planted today (May 19th.) A good rain is needed.

Spotty rains are moving through the area on Friday, but extremely low humidity and winds have continued to pull what little moisture is there out of the soil. It is concerning with little to no significant rain chances on the horizon and possible 90 Degree temperatures over the holiday weekend. Beans are VC-V3 depending on planting dates. Small pockets of replant for corn and soybeans are seen on western Champaign and Eastern Piatt counties.

This soybean field is located in White County, just south of Carmi. Field is currently at V1 stage, with some plants reaching V2

In Piatt County, the heavy rains of May 6 -8 have caused some emergence issues in fields planted ahead of those rains. Some fields have been rotary hoed and some not. Wheat fields have finished flowering and look good. Early planted crops are growing well, corn is at V4 and soybean at V2. Ponding damage is visible in poorly drained areas of fields. Only light rain has fallen in the past week.

Most of our area has finally received some rainfall over the last week, but it has been scattered and highly variable. I have had reports of a few tenths to a few inches across the county. Much of the area has gotten about 3/4 to 1″, however, there is a band through the central part of the county that has only gotten a few tenths at best and even that was scattered across multiple days. I have a corn demonstration plot planted 5/3 that after 2 weeks barely emerged and soybeans planted that same time again with very spotty emergence. Wide spread rain is greatly needed. For those that have caught rain, crops responded almost overnight in growth. I have seen some of the largest corn fields at V3-4. PRE herbicide activation has been a concern with limited rainfall. Wheat continues to be quite happy with continued modest temperatures overall in the 70s and 80s and no excessive precipitation. We will get a better view of the wheat crop across the region next Tuesday at the Illinois Wheat Association Plot Tour, where farmer groups will canvas many of our wheat producing counties across the state, assessing crop quality and yield estimates They will wrap up at the Belleville Research Center late afternoon to view plots and report crop observations.

Most fields in the area are planted and emerged. For the most part, the crop looks to be off to a good start in most fields, with the exception a few low spots where water is or was recently standing following the rains earlier this month. With minimal rain and some warmer temperatures in the near-term forecast, farmers in the area will likely finish up any planting and replanting they have to do in the next week or so.

2.8 inches of rain over the weekend. Water standing field work has been at a stand still for the last week and will be for another week. Just a few fields left to plant in the area., Either field corn or seed corn.

This soybean field has uniform germination and good plant stand.

Corn is up. This field was planted on May 4th and had about an inch and a half of rain after it was planted followed by warmer temperatures.

Had just 4 tenths of rain in June so far. Most crops still look good.. Lighter soils and sand fields are showing stress. Been applying about an inch of water per week for the last 3 weeks through irrigation.