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Productive late winter for Illinois farmers

A central Illinois farmer says it’s been a productive late winter.

Malcolm Head, who farms and sells seed with his family in Macon County, says they’ve accomplished a lot already…

“We worked some ground down to sew alfalfa, and I’ll tell you it worked really nice.”  He says, “It’s been a beautiful winter and a lot of projects got done and we’ve got more guys hooked up to planters than normal. Actually, we’re the same way. We’ve got both planters hooked up.”

On the seed side of things, he tells Brownfield…

“Our supplies have been good.”  He says, “I’ve had a couple guys switch a couple of acres from corn to beans just due to market pricing, but in central Illinois, we stay pretty much tried and true to our rotations.”

He says they’ll be planting soybeans first this season…

“We’ve realized that with corn, it’s all about getting out of the ground, that uniform stand.”  He says, “So you want to make sure if you’re going to plant corn early, that you’ve got a forecast for the next 10 days that’s conducive for it to have rapid growth.”

Head says if the ground is ready, he plans to start planting soybeans the week after Easter. 

AUDIO: Malcolm Head, central IL Farmer