La Salle County crop and rainfall report: Corn growing with warm temps

The summer crop and rainfall report, which features crop condition and rainfall updates from La Salle County farmers, is published regularly during the growing season. The following report covers May 31 through June 6 and is provided with assistance from the La Salle County Farm Bureau.

David Hall, Serena: This week brought much warmer and drier weather to the area, with zero rain to report. Subsoil moisture still looks adequate, although another week of 90-plus degrees and no rain will start to use up subsoil moisture quickly. Corn is approximately 1 foot tall and roots appear to be well established now, as plant leaves have transitioned from lighter to darker green. Weed pressure is starting to pick up in corn, and we applied our second pass of herbicide with the sprayer. The corn will likely be canopied by the end of this week, which will shade the area between the rows and minimize sunlight to potential weeds. Soybeans are also looking healthy and are anywhere from 2 inches to 6 inches tall depending on planting date.

Area activities for the week included cutting and baling hay, post-spraying corn with herbicide, side-dressing nitrogen on corn, mowing ditches and cleaning up equipment. Have a safe week!

David Myer, Marseilles: June and warm summer days are here to stay and scattered rain showers seem to be the norm. I received a paltry 0.1 inches in those scattered showers though the amounts ranged all over the board even within the same fields. Corn is growing great with this steady warm temps and post spraying of the corn is wrapped up for this year. The last planted beans emerged in just a few days, and all look good and are growing as post spraying for the beans is underway. Sure hope late emerging weeds are not a problem this year. Wheat headed out and looks great with large heads and much more straw will be had this year as the plants are much taller than past couple of years. Lots of hay got made with the dry weather stretch we had and great quality and quantity was excellent.

Grain prices require a seat belt as the daily trading range on the corn can be 40-50 cents all depends on forecasts and trade news.

Bill Gray, Tonica/Lostant: As far as rain last week, I received a few sprinkles and not much more sprayers have been applying herbicide to some of the later planted corn and it won’t be long until some fields are knee high. Most fields look pretty good and have a dark green color. Soybean planting has finished in my area and some early planted soybeans will soon be sprayed with herbicide.

Last week I saw hay fields being cut and baled. It sure smelled good!

We’re getting mowers ready and will be mowing a few roadside ditches soon to control weeds. It’s nice that the crops are getting big enough that there is a place for wildlife to go.

Have a good week and be safe.

Ken Bernard, Grand Ridge: For the week we received no rainfall, it was getting dry. We could use a nice shower. Next week we will have a rainfall report but not for this week ending Sunday the sixth. Corn and beans are growing. There are still some problems in some bean fields with the cool weather some early planted beans are just not wanting to grow. The corn has been sprayed for weeds and they are starting to spray beans also. We have baled first cutting of hay and come up with nice quality hay. Wheat is starting to get a little color to it so it looks like the last week of June we will be combining the wheat. Have a nice weekend Thank you.

Geoffrey Janssen, Rutland: Fairly dry week for the southern part of the county no measurable rainfall to report. Crops are starting to respond to the warmer temperatures corn growing very rapidly starting to get darker green color, soybeans are also starting to get some height. There is lot of spraying still going on, some side dressing of liquid nitrogen on corn is still happening. Otherwise as usual people still mowing ditches, some hay getting baled little bit of everything right now.

Rainfall (in inches):

David Hall 0

David Myer 0.1

Bill Gray 0

Ken Bernard 0

Geoffrey Janssen 0