Attending the Illinois Wheat Plot Tour provided valuable insights into wheat development and the progress of corn and soybean planting in Bond and Madison Counties. Overall, wheat is flowering and progressing well, with insignificant occurrences of lodging and disease. Wheat yields are estimated at 93.77 in Bond County and 75.15 in Madison County based on our head and spikelet counts. Wet conditions have had discernible impacts on corn and soybean planting progress as most fields appear to be untouched by farming equipment.

On my drive this morning, nearly every field had corn or soybean emergence. I haven’t seen a planter in the last couple of days, seems like planting is pretty wrapped up. Fields are dry and plants really could use a drink of water, but low chances in the forecast the next 5-6 days. Crossing our fingers!

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.

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).

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.

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.