2016 Fall Farm

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4 Oct. 27, 2016 2016 Logan County Fall Farm Outlook Magazine Lincoln Daily News
The 2016 year has certainly been another
interesting one. One of the prime factors
making things interesting was the number
of rain events. I logged 66 days with precipitation
at my house between April 1 and September 30.
Of course, some of these didn’t amount to a lot
of accumulated precipitation. The frequency did,
however, keep producers from field operations for
large blocks of time. The end result was most of
the corn in the county being planted in a week-
long block the third week of April, and many of
the soybeans being planted a month later during
the third week of May.
Whenever planting is done in a short period of
time, as relayed by a mentor years ago, you are
destined for great things – or doomed for bad ones.
The risk management of staggered planting goes
out the window in a nutshell. Yield reports have
been on the side of great things for the most part to
this point. Yields were predicted to challenge the
lofty levels set in the record year of 2014. In that
year, Logan County corn and soybean yields were
230.8 bushels to the acre for corn and 63.7 for
soybeans. While official yields from the National
Ag Statistics Service won’t be available until late
February, appearances are we may fall short of
those figures on corn and challenge the soybean
yield numbers.
Challenges to the crops have existed. Diplodia
ear rot in corn and Sudden Death Syndrome in
soybeans are two of the more common problems
which took bushels off of our potential yields.
And, of course, water caused some issues. Water
problems were more common in low-lying areas,
where limited replanting occurred. The only real
dry periods we experienced this year were the
last half of June, and then as we were into the
harvest season. Both of these periods did offer
some benefits, as the June period forced crops to
root further into the soil to seek moisture and the
harvest period – well, that allowed for harvest to
proceed.
The financial situation remains a major topic of
discussion. According to University of Illinois
projections, negative returns on corn will continue
through 2017. Soybeans are projected to show a
2016 Year In Review
By
John Fulton
John Fulton
County Extension
Director
University of Illinois
Extension
Logan/Menard/Sanga-
mon Unit
700 S. Airport Drive
Springfield, IL 62707
Phone: 217-782-4617
FAX: 217-524-6662
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