PEORIA, Ill. — Is the time right for soybean producers in central and northern Illinois to consider a double-crop rotation of beans and wheat?

The Illinois Soybean Assoc. (ISA) board of directors, compo sed of members who have reaped benefits from double-cropping on their farms, has launched a three-year initiative to study whether such a rotation makes economic sense for farmers in upstate Illinois.

“The farms that double-crop have the advantage of working with two (cash-earning) markets to increase profits,” said Linda Kull, Ph.D., director of strategic research programs for the ISA. “You also have environmental benefits and soil health benefits. Double-cropping seems to hit on a lot of important issues right now.”

To launch the soybean checkoff-funded project, ISA hosted a series of meetings with selected stakeholders and began reviewing existing research to identify best management practices (BMPs) for double-cropping, according to Kull.

“We put together an advisory panel of experts from industry that supply the wheat and soybean varieties that would be best for double-crop systems, agronomists who have done double-crop research and our directors – farmers who actually double-crop. The panel determines during brainstorming sessions what the challenges are and how the system can be made more profitable,” she explained.

“That provides us with the basis for us to move forward. We need to know what’s been done, what are the opportunities, what are the constraints, what are the needs and what’s available in industry before we can move forward. We’ve got information on (BMPs) that we can get out right now.”

According to ISA data, somewhere around 452,000 soybean acres are double-cropped in the state each year, primarily in southern Illinois. Yet, the ISA has been unable to find management guides or studies for the double-crop system published after the 1960s or 1970s.

“There has been research since the ’60s, but it’s been kind of sporadic or never recorded. That’s a long time between studies,” said Kull.

The initiative will primarily focus on how to make double-cropping more profitable for soybean growers in central and northern Illinois. New wheat varieties that will allow wheat crops to move farther north will be scrutinized by agronomists during the three-year study.

“We’ll look at what wheat varieties will be early-maturing and can be harvested earlier, so the soybean crop can get in a little earlier,” Kull explained.

Don Guinnip, ISA Production Committee chair and a soybean grower from Marshall, says double-cropping has improved his bottom line and made him a better steward of the land since the 1970s. He had a double-crop field with a higher economic return than his corn acreage in 2014.

“Not only that, but I have a crop growing in my soil, adding organic matter most months out of the year. From a water quality and erosion standpoint, double-cropping offers great benefits in many parts of Illinois,” Guinnip stated.

“If you have living roots in the ground, pulling in the nutrients and maintaining them, they don’t flow through the tiles or drainage systems,” added Kull. “Double-cropping is a way of keeping those nutrients in the ground.”

The new double-crop study was promoted to growers attending the ISA 2015 Illinois Soybean Summit March 6 at the Peoria Civic Center. So was ILSoyAdvisor.com, an ISA-sponsored website that offers growers free management and production tips, market information and more.

The website boasts the latest soybean research developments, and will serve as the primary source for disseminating BMPs and results from the ISA’s double-crop soybean-wheat research project. “(The website) is the best source for information about soybean management that is on the Internet today,” said Kull.

In addition, Dan Davidson, ISA research and technical coordinator, announced during the Soybean Summit the Illinois Certified Crop Advisor program will begin contributing written content regarding soybean production and management for publication on ILSoyAdvisor.com this year.