With frequent rains over the past couple of weeks, topsoil moisture remains adequate, and crop health is looking good across Coles County. Full-season soybean fields ranged from R3 (beginning pod) to R5 (beginning seed). I saw minimal disease in the soybean fields I surveyed. Minor Japanese beetle feeding was common in fields visited, although it was generally contained to the uppermost leaves and resulted in less than 5% defoliation overall. The couple of double-crop soybean fields I found were in the V3–V4 range, with growth just starting to poke through the wheat stubble. Corn fields were generally around the R2 (blister) stage, with some stragglers still in R1 (silk) and a few early-planted fields reaching R3 (milk). I saw minimal foliar disease in the corn fields I walked into, although some common diseases—such as northern corn leaf blight, Physoderma brown spot, and common rust—are starting to show up in the lower canopy.