In August, my office phone lights up with calls from farmland owners wanting to know about the direction of cash rent values for farms here in east-central Illinois. This is never easy to answer because no one can accurately forecast the future. Currently, we are looking for average to above yields...
This is the third year in a row that I have seen tall waterhemp, over 6" tall, sprayed with a post-emergent herbicide combination containing dicamba. Last year, I noticed a few fields where it seemed that tall waterhemp had survived a late application of dicamba and appeared to have small seed...
If you have been watching cornfields in Central Illinois, you may have noticed that the young corn plants have changed colors over the past couple of weeks. In late April, the small corn plants were green in color and two weeks later these same plants are pale yellow-green. On April 26, the 4-inch...
The fall of the year is not only a time of harvest, but also of lease signing. For the past four years, rents in Illinois have been relatively stable with highly productive...
A recent article by Mike Stanton, soybean Extension educator at Michigan State University, does a nice job of discussing the possible effects of sub-freezing...
Over the past couple of weeks, stock and commodity agriculture markets have been struggling.
We are currently in a flash recession, according to University of Illinois Agricultural Economists Todd Hubbs and...
Stored grain should be kept at or near 35°F according to the experts. But over the past month in Central Illinois, the average daily temperature has varied 44°F – from a high daily average of 52° F to a low of 8°F.
Moisture in a filled grain bin moves from the warmed grain near the outside wall to...
Two particularly troublesome pigweeds are Tall Waterhemp and Palmer Amaranth, which have and are continuing to develop resistance to herbicides. In Illinois, Tall Waterhemp is resistant to 6 different classes of herbicides and Palmer Amaranth is resistant to 3. If that is not bad enough, members of...
It has been a wet April across parts of Illinois, and farmers are anxious about getting their crops planted. Recent history since 2000, shows that late planting does not always lead to lower yields....
According to university farm economists across the Midwest, 2019 is the year where farmers need to scrutinize their crop expenses, and see where they can cut costs to improve their net return per acre. Currently, the projected fall prices for corn and soybeans are mid-$3's and mid-$8's,...
