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.

Attending the Illinois Wheat Plot Tour provided valuable insights into wheat development and the progress of corn and soybean planting in Macoupin and Montgomery Counties. Overall, wheat is flowering and conditions appear favorable, with only minor occurrences of bacterial leaf streak and tan spot observed in the fields we visited. Based on head and spikelet counts, estimated wheat yields are 100.38 in Macoupin County and 89.59 in Montgomery County. Corn and soybeans are beginning to emerge and are in their early vegetative stages, although many fields have yet to be planted due to wet spring conditions.

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.

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!

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).