Harvest is progressing well after a brief break due to rain last week. Soybeans are very dusty, with leaves dying prematurely and hanging on the plant. Moisture is below 10% in most fields. Corn continues to dry down as beans are cut.

Rains over the last week have been welcome, but have not provided the much-needed relief from drought conditions. If anything, the rain has slowed the harvest progress for many across Logan County. While on the outside rows, some fields appear ready to harvest, there are still many green plants deep inside the fields. Soybeans have been most affected by the lack of rain, with very few green leaves left on the plants.

Last weekend, we accumulated a little over 3″ of rainfall from several storms. Harvest had just kicked off last week, only to come to a halt while the surface soil dries back out. Unfortunately, this rain came a few weeks too late to help most of our crop. Most of the corn and early beans are already either dead or well into senescence and will not benefit. I pulled a couple of soybean plants that will be ready to harvest in a week or so, and while they had a decent number of pods, quite a few of them were completely flat. There are some double-crop and late-planted beans that are just starting to tinge yellow; they might benefit from the late moisture. Time will tell.

This past week brought some relief from the dry weather in east-central IL, but rainfall totals in the region were generally 1″ and variable, with some areas receiving 0.1″ (IL State Water Survey – WARM Program; Midwest Regional Climate Center – Ag Climate Dashboard). Unfortunately, it comes too late for most of the corn and soybean crop to benefit. That said, during my survey in Ford County this week, I did see a number of pastures, double-crop soybean fields, a few alfalfa fields, and a handful of fields planted to annual forage mixes that will get some benefit from the precipitation as the growing season winds down.

Harvested corn and soybean acres in Ford County were still low—perhaps 10%—with the recent rain stalling progress for a few days. At the time of my survey, more soybean fields had been cleared than corn fields, though there were still a number of corn fields fully harvested or at least “opened up.” All corn fields surveyed were at R6 (“black layer”), but about half were still showing some green in the upper canopy. Tar spot is also easy to find at this point in the season, with heavier pressure in the northern part of the county. However, it appears to have come in late enough not to have greatly affected yields, with relatively full ears on most plants checked during the survey. Of the full-season soybean fields surveyed, most were at R8 (“full maturity”), while the couple of double-crop soybean fields I stopped at seemed to be stuck in R5, struggling to fill pods.

These aerial shots of our fungicide trial show how detrimental disease pressure can be. In this trial, we ran the same mix of max-rate premium fungicide, but delayed half the application by 10 days.

Harvest is officially underway around here. That said, I did have to look around quite a while in today’s travels to find a crew actively cutting soybeans. I did see a few fields that had been taken out in the last several days. Most soybeans are anywhere from 75–100% leaf drop now, with some stem lodging present in almost all of them. Fortunately, they haven’t lodged far enough to be difficult for the combine. I’m cautiously optimistic about soybean yields—many fields probably could have benefited from another inch or two of rain in August, but I was able to find quite a few 4-bean pods now that leaves have dropped.

Much of the corn in the area still has some green in the leaves, but it is fading fast. Some fields have black layered already, and others are almost there. In the fields I’ve visited I have not seen much tip back on ears, which gives me hope that corn yields are going to be average to above average in the area. I’m still a bit worried about stalk quality and standability in some fields, but the ears are looking pretty good.

I’m telling all the farmers I speak with to take extra precautions and have safety briefs with their harvest crews. A dry harvest season obviously brings enhanced risk of fires. Know where your fire extinguishers are, and if you can have a piece of tillage equipment staged onsite and ready to cut fire breaks if needed, DO IT!