Talon Becker
IL Extension
tbecker2@illinois.edu
Talon Becker
IL Extension
tbecker2@illinois.edu
TALON BECKER UPDATES
As is the story with much of the surrounding area, there have been a range of planting dates for row crop fields in Champaign County. In my loop through the southern half of the county, I saw a field that had just been planted within the last day or two as well as soybeans at the V3/4 stage and corn at V7/8. This range of plant maturity also exists within some fields, with replanted areas and other areas that were slowed in emergence and growth by standing water and/or saturated soils are pretty common across the county. The most advanced soybeans will likely be flowering soon, if not already. In the couple fields I stopped at, I couldn’t find an open flower quite yet. For corn, there was a good proportion of fields, maybe 20%, that are at V6 or later and really starting to take off. These plants will likely deal with the coming heat much better than those that are younger, smaller, and have less developed root systems. Hopefully, with how wet we have been in this area lately, most of those later planted fields will still have sufficient moisture available for these young plants as we get into the 90+ degree weather in the coming days.