Farmers in Illinois have been pleasantly surprised with harvest results on both corn and soybeans. While they did face drought during the season, some timely rains helped them produce some big yields.
Illinois was hit early in the season with a flash drought covering 60-percent of the state. That included Matt Bennett’s farm in central Illinois. “So, in the month of June, we were excessively dry. It wasn’t super-hot, which kind of helped us out a little bit but excessively dry whenever we were setting the ear size. So, we were a little bit concerned.
But then they received some timely rains during pollination and again in early August on his Windsor farm. “The amount of rain I believe was just right to kind of get us through. So, what we found is the yields have been very good very competitive with what our best ever yields are, but not best ever by any means. We’re probably 5% to 10% off on both corn and beans.”
He says heat also trimmed yield potential early in the season and then shut down the corn in late August, early September. “On corn yields we’ve seen a lot of early yields in the 240 to 250 range, getting down into the 220 range on some later stuff you know that’s on a little lighter ground.”
On soybeans he says again timely rains helped their early beans and pulled up their farm average. “Our early beans were awfully good this year. We’re talking some 80s. We got into some of the later maturing beans, and they weren’t quite as good. But overall, the average is going to be you know, again, maybe 5% under 2022. So, a very good year overall.”
Bennett says the late season heat and dryness also pushed the crop to maturity and it dried down quickly, leading to one of the fastest harvests ever on his farm.
“We’ve had some beans down to 10% corn moisture content getting down into that 13%, 14% level and the thing is the all the corn, and all the beans is ready right now. And with all this heat, everybody’s trying to get to it as quick as they possibly can.
Before standability of the crop becomes an issue.
Georgetown farmer Doug Kirk says he too was in a dry pocket in east central Illinois with precipitation 10 to 12 inches below normal during the season.
“Where the yield is coming from in the end. I don’t know. But we got off to a really good start with our planting this year. And despite the lack of a lot of rain we’re coming out with one heck of a crop.”
In fact, his corn is running well over 200 bushels per acre, which is 15 to 30 bushels higher than Kirk anticipated.
“We were so dry this year and so hot that we really thought we’re going to take it on the chin frankly, so where farms ought to make 220 We thought they might be 200 plus or minus five or 10 bushel but what we’re finding is we’re farms off the 230 bushel an acre, they’re making that some cases more.”
The only caveat is the corn is a bit light.
“The test weights off a little bit from prior years and that’s probably due to the short grain fill period that we had.”
Kirk says his soybeans are also running about 10 bushels over their APH or farm average and the quality is better than 2022 with the lack of disease.
“We’ve only been in a couple fields we haven’t only been in a couple of fields that haven’t been up near record yields well into the 80s.”
Both Kirk and Bennett say many farmers in Illinois are experiencing the same results. So, while statewide yields will be below last year’s records, they’re still exceeding expectations.
