Many have finishing up planting and spraying but have now moved on to stand evaluation. Overall, stands look good, low populations in some fields have led to some replant situations thanks to slugs. Also, hearing some concerns about cutworm. Now is the time to scout.

West-Central/ Central Illinois Report 5/15/25

The week in Central/ West Central Illinois again acted as a snapshot for the diverse story in Illinois as a whole.

Northern and eastern portions started the week off “nearly complete.” In some cases corn and beans in the Carthage, Quincy, Pittsfield, and Jacksonville area stood at nearly 90% planted.

East of Springfield, moving toward Decatur and Taylorville, corn began the week at better than 80% planted with beans anywhere from 60-75% planted.

The creep toward Route 16 saw a dramatically different story with a line from Shelbyville running up to Carlinville struggling to best 25% planted.

Spotty showers caused occasional delays but most of the area saw weather suited to make planting progress if soil conditions allowed.

Major points of concern for the week circled around crusted soils that cut into final stands and weed pressure breaking through pre-emerge chemistry.

The wheat crop began to head out in the area. The earliest beans passed second trifoliate, and some early corn fields began to near V5.

Still very wet. Most of the fungicide is on wheat, which looks good where it hasn’t been drowned out. Still no planters out of the shed. Forecast calling for more rain.

Black cutworm will likely become large enough to cut plants in most of Illinois over the next week or so; this is a good time to scout, with a special focus on fields where winter annual weed control was poor and/or weedy vegetation was dying while crops were emerging. While black cutworm (along with variegated cutworm and some other species) are more of a problem where broadleaf vegetation was present early, look out for armyworm in wheat and in corn where grassy weeds/cover crops were present early – again, the situation that most commonly leads to injury is when the crop emerges while grassy vegetation is dying/drying down. (Fields bordering wheat can be affected as well). We have nice, warm temperatures and (mostly) good soil moisture (perhaps a little too “good” in some areas), which will help seedling plants outrun early season insect injury. I have continued to receive only a handful of reports of injury – nothing out of the ordinary so far. (Note my own observations so far have been pretty limited to areas where we’re planting trials near Champaign and Monmouth – we’ll start to cover more of the state as our soybean insect sampling takes off in the next few weeks).

Scouting was done in Stephenson County. Overall the field conditions are very dry with May only bringing 1.1″ across the area so far. Temperatures have been in the upper 70s and low 80s this week with lows in the upper 40s and 50s. There are some potential rain events coming in the next week to add some moisture back into the soil. A large majority of fields have been planted and pre-emerge posts are being applied.

Corn has emerged in a majority of fields. Plants are healthy with good vigor from abundant sunshine. Growth stages are between emergence and V2 pushing V3. Despite the dry weather the residual soil moisture has produced uniform emergence.

Soybeans are beginning to emerge, by the end of the weekend most fields should emerge, but as of Wednesday only a small amount of fields had beans breaking through. Those beans were at the VE emergence or VC unifoliate unfolding growth stages. Soil top soil were dry but no crusting due to the lack of rain and the beans were having no issue breaking through the surface.

Wheat is at Feekes 10 or boot growth stage. The head is fully developed and about 2/3 the way up the leaf sheath. Head emergence is just around the corner with the warm weather. Fungicide sprays will be applied in short order as well once heads emerge. Plants looked healthy with low disease within the wheat stand.

Overall a great week for heat units and growth on the major cash crops in NW illinois and across all of northern IL. The rain potential in the next week will go a long way after a relatively dry spring and a dry winter for crop growth.

Planting is near complete with a few cover crop fields being finished after termination. Dry conditions are here in Western Illinois and we will need a rain soon or crops will start showing stress due to slower growth with young roots not being able to find available moisture. Overall corn and soybean emergence is around 70%. Soybean emergence in heavy crop residues need to be checked for emergence issues.