News

IL planting progress makes gains

Planting progress in Illinois saw decent gains last week.

Northwestern Illinois farmer Ellen Rahn tells Brownfield their area was busy.

“Planting progress has been going on around our neck of the woods all week pretty strong.”  She says, “Some guys are kind of waiting after this rain to get a start, but I would say a majority of our area has been putting seed in the ground all week.”

USDA’s weekly crop progress and condition report shows 25% of corn and 26% of soybeans are planted. 

Rahn says they’ve focused on soybeans.

“We actually started with beans. We did that last year. We liked what we saw.”  She says, “We had great yields and we just felt that with the conditions, the soil temperature was being a little on the cooler side. It was a fair start to get the beans in the ground and we’ll wait until after this rainfall and then we’ll get corn going in the ground.”

Corn planting is 14% behind last year, and even with the five-year average.  Soybeans are 16% behind last year, and 8% ahead of the five-year average.  Planting of both crops jumped double digits over last week.  Corn is 6% emerged, while soybeans are 5%. 

Farmers found 3.1 days suitable for fieldwork, and the rains have kept subsoil moistures charged with 10% of Illinois rated very short or short, an 11% improvement over last week.  

Winter wheat headed reached 16 percent, compared to the 5-year average of 11 percent. Eighty seven percent of winter wheat was rated good to excellent condition.