BELLEVILLE, Ill. — An almost cool breeze, combined with a break in the region’s humidity, left many commenting on the perfect weather for the annual Southern Illinois University Belleville Research Station’s Field Day last Thursday.

Indeed, weather dominated the day’s discussions, from combating resistant weeds to summarizing the station’s wheat variety trials. Mark Britt summed up the extremes of the past year for his farm audience with single statistic.

“Here at Belleville, we’ve seen 24 more inches of rainfall this year, through July 10, than during the same period in 2012,” said the meteorologist from the National Weather Service’s St. Louis station.

The region’s relentless rains are most recently owing to a unique low-pressure system hovering in June, said Britt, who titled his comments “From Drought to Flood.” That system produced an active spring thunderstorm season extending well into last month for the St. Louis region, keeping many farmers in southern and south-central Illinois still in the fields.

“I’m done with beans, but my acreage isn’t as much as a lot of guys’,” commented a producer located near Salem, about 75 miles east of Belleville. “There’s still 1,500 acres, down from my ground, yet to be planted with beans.”

David Marshall, a marketing adviser with Toay Commodities, LLC in Nashville, Ill., said all his clients were still planting soybeans July 10. “My guess is that there will be fewer acres of soybeans (nationally) actually planted, but we won’t actually know that until August,” he said.

The USDA’s June Crop Report indicated record high soybean planting, but NASS has announced it will resurvey soybean acreage in 14 states this month, including Illinois, Iowa and Tennessee, to confirm the projected soybean acres are actually planted.

Planting delays are affecting soybean disease management in southern Illinois, said Jason Bond, SIU plant pathologist.

“We’re noticing plenty of pythium, but the big disease is phytophthora,” he told producers, emphasizing the condition needs to be continually monitored. “You can’t just use a seed treatment and think you’re good,” with phytophthora control.

Nor can the region’s growers lapse on weed management, said Bryan Young, SIU weed scientist and an expert on managing the region’s herbicide-resistant weeds. The wet spring created plenty of headaches for applying preemergent residuals, but proper timing of residuals before planting is still one of the best weapons in the region’s weed management arsenal.

“Timing won’t solve all our resistant weed problems, but proper herbicide application timing can help solve most of our problems,” said Young.

Late plantings are also affecting the region’s cornfields. “What’s wrong with this corn crop on the 11th of July?” asked Emerson Nafziger, University of Illinois crop scientist, referencing one of the Belleville Research Station’s taller corn plots.

“It’s too short – too much sunlight is hitting the ground. We should expect more canopy by this date.”

For producers still in the field, whether planting or spraying, Britt had a welcome forecast: “We’ll see a calm period (from precipitation) and near-normal temperatures over the next seven to 10 days.”

After that, he said, the weather is yet unpredictable – something everyone at the Belleville Field Day knows all too well.