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ILSoyAdvisor.com is reaching out to farmers across the state to get their preharvest predictions and postharvest reflections. 

Central Illinois Preharvest Report
Jenny Mennenga farms with her husband, Eric, in McLean and Dewitt counties in central Illinois. When Mennenga isn’t growing corn, soybeans and seed beans, or tending to her cow-calf herd and seed dealership, she serves as a first-term ISA Director.

Weather
Mennenga hopes that late August rains added seed size to soybeans in her area, but acknowledges that the rains also brought stalk quality concerns in corn.

Yield Expectations
At first glance, Mennenga’s soybeans look like they will deliver the large yield that was predicted for harvest 2014. With harvest just beginning, she is interested to see how harvest pans out in her area after seeing neighboring fields with sudden death syndrome and some light white mold. So far, her soybeans are yielding five bushels under the five year field average. Mennenga attributes this to wet weather stressed plants and she is seeing lots of aborted seed and small seed size in early varieties.

Weed Management
Mennenga reports disease-free fields this year, but faced challenges with weed management. “My biggest challenge is managing glyphosate-tolerant weeds,” she says, “Waterhemp control in my area exceeds $40 per acre as we are now in the habit of layering soil residual products for good control.” Resistant weeds are a growing issue for farmers across the state.

Other Observations
Like other Illinois farmers, Mennenga worries about profits in 2015. “With the large bushels in fields, I am very concerned about trying to pencil in a profit.” She also observed that input suppliers are not reducing costs to keep up with the commodity price erosion.

Also read the Northern Illinois and Southern Illinois Reports.