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| Farmers Starting to Turn to Soybeans |
Corn planting is already close to being wrapped up in Illinois.
The USDA's weekly crop report says farmers across the state, for the most part, enjoyed reasonable weather conditions last week. Temperatures remained above normal, and so was precipitation, which prevented farmers from making as much progress as they did in the past few weeks.
Rainfall averaged 1 and a quarter inches across the state, which is about one-third of an inch wetter than normal. The wettest region was the southeast district, where 2.27 inches of rain fell. That slowed down corn planting there, which is behind the rest of the state's crop reporting districts at 71 percent complete. The USDA reports 87 percent of Illinois corn is in the ground, a gain of 14 percentage points last week compared to the week before and well ahead of the 47 percent five-year average. Only five percent of the corn was planted at this time last year
USDA crop statistician Brad Schwab says the early planting could produce excellent yields, but it's still too early to tell.
"This sets the stage for us to be able to have excellent yields for the year," Schwab said. "But, then, there's so many other variables that come into play throughout the growing season, so we'll have to wait and see."
Corn planting advanced to 75 percent complete in western Illinois and 30 percent of the crop is emerged. Farmers in the west crop reporting district had just 1.2 days suitable for fieldwork during a week that tallied 1.13 inches of rain, leaving more than half of the region's farmland with surplus moisture and the rest with an adequate amount. Topsoil moisture across the state is rated 98 percent adequate or surplus.
Planted corn has surpassed 90 percent complete in three crop reporting districts and producers in those regions now are getting a leg up on soybeans. Soybean planting across the state began this week at 11 percent. The total is 5 percent in western Illinois. |
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| 05 06 10 by Newsroom |
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