Lee County farmers take advantage of early window to plant corn, soybeans

ASHTON, Ill. — Corn and soybeans are planted at the same time on the Henert farm.

“We go off soil conditions so we started planting on April 15,” said William Henert, who farms together with his wife, Lea, and his parents, Nolan and Linda Henert.

“With this early window, you’re always questioning yourself, but we’re happy we did it at the end of the year,” the farmer said. “Every year is different, but for the past 10 years, it’s been the right thing to do.”

“Last year, we planted early like this and then we got rained out so there was about a 30-day spread from the start to the finish of planting,” he recalled. “There was an obvious 20- to 30-bushel advantage for the early corn, so that’s why we’re planting now.”

The family uses two 24-row planters on the 3,200-acre operation near Ashton, in northern Illinois. William joined the farm full time after graduating from Western Illinois University in 2014 with a degree in agriculture.

“We bought the second planter in 2016,” he said. “We planted all corn before that so our thought was to plant more corn early because we could never plant enough corn early.”

In 2015, the family started growing seed corn for Wyffels Hybrids.

“We use to feed several hundred head of cattle and we transitioned out of that,” Henert said. “The seed corn has replaced that work for us.”

The 1,000 acres of seed corn will be planted in May.

“We like to wait until after Mother’s Day because the weather seems to cooperate better,” Henert said. “Seed corn can be pretty fussy.”

The seed corn is planted in a four-one pattern.

“Most of the time we plant the female rows first, but sometimes it’s the male rows first and then the females,” Henert said. “It is based on the pollination pattern – when the males release the pollen or vice versa, when the females shoot the silk.”

The family does its own spraying for both the commercial crops and the seed corn.

“We also destroy the male rows and my cousins do the harvesting of the seed corn,” Henert said.

“There will be two or three Wyffels guys here when we plant, when we harvest and throughout the summer checking all the fields,” Lea Henert said.

Preparing for the planting season for the Henerts starts in the fall with the application of DAP fertilizer, potash and sulfur.

“In the spring we apply 70 units of 32% nitrogen and we put a preemergence herbicide on the corn and soybean acres,” William Henert said.

Wyffels and Pioneer hybrids of 110- to 114-day maturities are planted on the farm.

“We mainly plant Pioneer soybeans and some Golden Harvest that are from 2.2 to 2.7,” Henert said.

“There’s always plenty of rocks to pick up and we’ve been mapping the fields and putting the new guidance lines in, so it doesn’t feel like we’ve stopped since last fall,” he said. “We got a new planter and tractor, so we’ve been updating the guidance information.”

“With the seed corn, the boundaries change so much with the isolation, so we have to update that every year,” Lea Henert added.

In addition to the family members, the operation includes one employee.

“He’s a retired guy that has worked for mom and dad for almost 50 years,” William Henert said. “Hopefully he won’t retire on me until our boys are involved with the farm.”

William and Lea are the parents of Wilson, 6, and Roy, 4.

“This time of the year, they are very upset that they have to go to school and they can’t just go plant with dad or pick up rocks with mom,” Lea Henert said.

In addition to her farm responsibilities, for the past three years she has worked at GRAINCO FS.

“I do the ag technology which involves having all our machines talk to our systems like the accounting software,” explained the graduate of the University of Wisconsin-Platteville, where she double majored in ag business and soil and crop science.

“I am also the IT department, so I work with setting up computers, phones and printers,” she said.

Prior to her current position, Lea was a chemical representative for Corteva Agriscience for seven years.

In the spring, she operates the seed tender and is on call for parts runs.

“My job is a lot of running around to make sure the planters stay running and delivering food is a big part of it,” she said. “In the fall, I run the grain cart most of the time and some of our tillage equipment.”

“We love being able to farm as a family – that’s the most important part to us,” she stressed. “And to involve the boys and hopefully that will instill a love for agriculture in them, too.”