ILSoyAdvisor Blog

Most every major purchase you make comes with an owner’s manual that tells you the right ways to have a successful run with your item. Your car comes with an owner’s manual, your lawn mower, even your pet rock did as I recall. You get an owner’s manual after you’ve taken possession of the goods, which means it is a separate publication from the product guide you look at prior to purchase. If your soybean seed purchase this year came with an...

Spring is in the air! The grass is greening up, the songbirds are back serenading us, each day is getting longer, the daily temperature is sort of warming up, and snow is changing to rain (for the most part). But that is the problem, isn’t it? Temps are staying lower than average, and the precipitation does not seem to want to stay away for longer than a 48-hour stretch, at best. In Champaign, the average temperature for the month of...

I grew up on a small corn and soybean farm in Crawford County, IL. I enjoyed growing up on the farm and helping in the summers. I appreciated the lessons it taught me about making do with what you have and the valuable lessons you can only learn from manual labor. While I decided to leave the family farm for college, I was able to stay connected to agriculture through my education, majoring in Agricultural Engineering at the University of...

Although some parts of Illinois have started to get beans in the ground, most of us are still waiting for soils to dry out and warm up. Something that should be on our radars in the week or two before planting are soilborne insect pests that may affect our soybeans. Wireworms and white grubs are the two pests of importance in Illinois, and on occasion these insect larvae can cause significant reductions in stands and early season plant vigor...