On a trip to Monmouth this past week I saw the beginning of some likely spider mite infestations; if the drought continues, these become increasingly likely in soybean. This is a great reason to hold off on broad spectrum insecticide applications, which don’t touch the mites but eliminate their natural enemies. (Also, a good reason not to mow your grassways if you don’t have to).

The dryness ensures. Class A’s holding on but class B’s are struggling. The silver side of leaves in soybeans can now be seen after mid-day. A sign of very dry conditions.

This afternoon, I took a drive through western Vermillion County. Like much of the state, still, conditions are very dry. There was large variability in growth stage between fields. Corn generally fell in the V6-V10 range, although some of the later planted fields are not quite there and appear to have significantly slowed growth. In general, the larger corn looked healthier with less water stress, indicating there is some plant available moisture at the deeper soil levels accessible to roots of these larger plants, but perhaps not by the corn closer to V6. Soybean fields also showed a good deal of variation in terms of overall growth (open trifoliates, nodes, branches, etc.), although most fields I stopped an walked into were showing at least some flowers, with several at R2. Although there was variation in the overall appearance of health in the soybean fields surveyed, there were flipped leaves and signs of water stress in all of them. I did come across one wheat field that looked to have good head size and minimal disease. Harvest for that field is likely just around the corner.

Conditions are very dry. We are starting to see Spider Mites and Japanese Beetles in our area.

Corn is hanging on as we are at least getting dew that runs down to the base of the plant. Wheat yield reports continue to be excellent. Both in bu/ac and test weight. Despite the dark clouds and a rainbow, no rain now in many locations for 35 days.

The extreme dry conditions are continuing to stunt plants and causing drought stress on crops across northern IL.