Thank you to everyone doing your best rain dances! June started off with 1.1 inches of much needed rain as we are still in a D1 drought in northern IL with some areas in the freeport area reaching D2. As of Wednesday nearly of all of Northern IL received some moisture, with many areas averaging around 1 inch of rain. Plants around the region are emerged and are progressing through early vegetative states. Plants overall are a bit stunted from the lack of moisture, but should shoot up after the rain and with more rain in the forcast.

Corn: The crop is progressing along. Every field I saw has emerged with most fields ranging between V2 and V4 pushing V5 depending on planting date. Corn looks healthy and green with no disease seen yet.

Soybeans: Soybeans are anywhere between V1 and V3 and emerging uniformly across the region. They are healthy and green, with some areas seeing herbicide drift damage but the plants will grow out of this quickly.

Wheat: The crop is well on its way into Feekes 11 (ripening), or is in the very late stages of Feekes 10.5.3 (full anthesis). I have not seen much if any disease this season thus far with the continued dry weather. With the large rain on Wednesday and more predicted early next week disease may start to creep in with various head blights. Scouting will be your best defense of knowing what is in the field.

Overall the season is moving along quickly and we should be seeing some great growth over the next couple of weeks