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Agronomist says northern Illinois corn crop is maturing rapidly

Northern Illinois agronomist Daniel Lundeen with Channel Seeds says all signs pointed to record yields this year.

Then, he says, farmers in his area started missing rains.  “Right now we’re trying to maintain yield levels,” he says.  “We’ve definitely gone backward.  It’s unknown what the soybean yields might be at this point and a lot of that is going to depend on the planting date or maybe if we get a pop-up shower or not.  On the corn side – we’re really just seeing an acceleration of maturity.”

He tells Brownfield there was also see some disease pressure this year.  “We had a lot of Southern Rust blow up from that tropical storm,” he says.  “We definitely had some tar spot coming in along with normal infections of grey leaf spot.  We didn’t receive much rainfall in July or August and I think that really slowed the disease progression and I think that really helped out some of those fields that didn’t get a fungicide application.”

Lundeen says some farmers in his area will start harvest shortly after Labor Day.

AUDIO: Daniel Lundeen, Channel Seed