Last week’s high winds and dust storms sidelined many producers in the area. Warmer temperatures and clear skies later in the week allowed most farmers to catch up on or finish planting across Logan, Menard, and Sangamon counties. Rain on Friday (5/24) and Sunday (5/26) provided some moisture for corn and soybeans that have recently emerged. In earlier-planted fields, corn and soybean plants remain in the V2-V3 stages. In the fields that were more recently planted, corn plants are in the VE stage, and soybean plants are in the VC-VE stages.

The crop in Coles County appears to be off to a good start. Of the fields observed during my transect of the county (5/28), I would estimate approximately 80-90% of fields had been planted, with 60-70% emerged. The majority of those emerged fields were still at early growth stages, but I did find a few corn fields at V4+. The little wheat I saw in the southwest portion of the county was starting to senesce. Soil conditions looked good. I did not see any water standing and only the occasional wet/muddy spot where the crop still looked healthy. These conditions also likely helped with applications of timely post-emergence weed control. I saw only a couple of fields that were in need of attention in that respect.

Planting is done in the area. Post emergence herbicides being applied to both corn and soybeans.
Those that side dress corn are hitting it hard. Crop stands are excellent, corn is V2 to V6 soybeans are V1 to V3.

Farmers were tilling, spraying, and planting in between storms and high winds. We’ve made a lot of ground this week but there are still a fair amount of fields yet to be planted. Weeds are emerging.

Well, I wrote this on Thursday night and lost what I had written. I had not made it back, and what I had written last night was completely different. We were off to the races with a lot of growers finishing up, planting in mild to ideal conditions after the rain last week. Today, we got slammed with a huge rain, and more on the way.

Black cutworm larvae should be approaching cutting size in most of Illinois – it’s a good time to scout fields where winter annuals were a problem at or around planting. We are right at 50% egg hatch for corn rootworms in central Illinois, so larval feeding will be occurring over the next several weeks.