Another week, more beautiful and perfect weather for outdoor activities. More notably, another week of little to no rain as we continue to progress into an early summer drought. Most of northern Illinois would be considered to be in a D1 moderate drought as of now. The forecast is promising, with chances this weekend, and most of next week to remedy how dry it has been. With moisture in the forecast, disease monitoring, and keeping an eye on weed pressure should come back into focus. Between corn, soybeans, and wheat I have seen little to no disease to this point in the season which is a great start with how wet April was.

If I could describe the growing season in one word, it would be variable. Varying planting dates, emergence dates, growth stages within the same fields of corn and soybeans. We are seeing ranges of anywhere from stuggling to emerge, to 3rd trifoliate or V3 in corn within many fields across the area. Hopefully the rain will even these patches across the fields over time, but some significant differences are being seen across corn and soybeans.

Wheat is in early feekes 11 or ripening stage. Fields look healthy with little disease, and the weather has progressed the crop nicely as they begin to enter senescence.

Thats all for this week, and we shall see what sort of rain we get in the next week!