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Agronomist outlines prominent challenges in southern Illinois fields

An agronomist says waterhemp and earworms are some of the biggest challenges in southern Illinois corn and soybean fields.

Ben Wiegmann with Beck’s Hybrids tells Brownfield the lack of rainfall during June prevented residual herbicides from activating, especially in soybeans.

“But then also the lack of humidity when a lot of Liberty applications were made too. You combine those two together and you’re going to have some hairy fields out there with a lot of waterhemp.”

He says corn fields are looking fairly clean. “If there’s been one big thing on the corn side, I would say it’s just been earworm coming in on some of those hybrids that maybe aren’t as tolerant to earworm, things like that.”

But Wiegmann is still expecting average to above average yields for both crops.

He says at this point in the season, most management practices are focused on improving next year’s crop through measures like soil sampling, residue management and fall fertility decisions.