Report from Central & West-Central Illinois

West-central/Central Illinois continues to show a diverse story, a story similar to the diverse north to south story in Illinois as a whole.

A tour west and north will show beans pushing a fourth trifoliate on better than 60% of acres. Some corn is flirting with 8 leaves with 2 out of every 10 fields well into 7.

Cross the River to the east, traveling to Springfield and crop growth & development remains exceptional. Better than 2/3 of the bean crop is pushing into V4. 75-80% of fields have corn in the V5 stage. At least 10% of crop sits at 6 to 7 leaves.

V5 to V6 stage corn only makes up about 30% of the corn crop as you move from Springfield to Taylorville with most of the crop in the three to four leaf stage (nearly 60%). Barely 20% of the bean crop had thought about V4 by the end of the week with better than half the crop closer to V2-V3.

Running south of Taylorville and just north of the wet line that has been Route 16 shows nearly a third of the bean and corn crop just past cotyledon stage or first leaf.

Mid to late week rainfall totals hit 1 inch to a few inches. Early week saw a fair amount of post-herbicide applications in fields.