Blog

The weather has been wet down here in Southwest Illinois with storms coming and going and more storms on the way. Rains on Mother’s Day weekend ranged from 1 to 6 inches. These storms flooded low-lying and unlevied bottoms and a few corn fields that will be replanted.

Here in dairy and hog country (Clinton and Washington counties) corn planting has been slow with about 65% is planted, but most of the barns got cleaned out. Overall I’d say 85% of the corn has been planted in my district (District 8). Some soybeans are seeded as of the middle of May with a few of them needing replanting as well or spotting in drown-out spots

This is a good year to test seed treatments with the extra stresses of cool and wet weather conditions this spring. Early season root diseases like Pythium, Phytophthora and Rhizoctonia flourish under the conditions. Fusarium fungi, the cause of SDS, will enter the plants now, develop later and not show signs until pod set. Some of these seedling diseases have long-lasting effect and turn into root and stem rot, or worse, and can dramatically alter yield. Always good to diagnose these symptoms early and make notes so you can manage better next year.

Most No-Till fields have been burnt down. Killing glyphosate-resistant marestail is a must today and throwing in some 2,4-D or dicamba will do the trick. Hopefully, growers added a residual herbicide to the mix as well to take out emerging spring annuals. We never can be sure when we will be allowed back into the field with all this rain and I have been seeing various grasses and broadleaf weed emerging.

Wheat fields look good. There was a lot of fungicide applied for head scab the last week. We don’t need any more wheat in the bins with high DON levels, as there is still some left from last year.  Armyworm swarms have come in with abundance and airplanes are a common sight.

Looking for dry conditions. ’Til next time.

John Niemeyer
District 8