By TIM ALEXANDER
Illinois Correspondent

MOSSVILLE, Ill. — Though the April 19 NASS/Illinois Illinois Weather and Crops report showed that 34 percent of the state’s corn crop had been planted, many farmers in Illinois reported that by April 24 their corn planting had been completed.

Verne “Bun” Schaffner of Mossville (Peoria County), was one of the farmers who was through planting and by last weekend was hoping (with success) for rain to kick-start plant growth.

“My corn was finished (April 22),” said Schaffner, who seeded about 500 acres of corn and plans to plant the same amount of soybeans.

“We started planting on April 9th,” he reported. “The soil was getting a little dry there when we were finishing up, but the first corn we planted, the soil was coming up pretty good. We definitely (needed) a good rain by the time we were done.”

Schaffner said it was May 11 before he and his crew were able to plant any corn last year. “This year is the earliest I’ve ever got to start planting corn, and the earliest I’ve ever been done - and I’ve been farming 50-something years,” he added.

Paul Taylor, a DeKalb farmer who represents northeastern Illinois
with the Illinois Corn Growers Assoc. (ICGA), said he finished planting field corn before even Schaffner. Taylor, who seeded 450 acres of corn, said that in his area around 75-90 percent of the corn had been planted.

“Ground that was tilled nicely in the fall worked up really mellow and was in really nice shape,” Taylor said. “What we’re seeing and hearing with the farmers who are going corn-on-corn is that as the week progressed and the soil got drier and drier, they were having a hard time managing the lumps. I’m hearing a lot of that corn-on-corn went into pretty lumpy conditions.”

Overwintering cornstalks in many fields meant some farmers had more field prep work than others, Taylor said. Those are the farmers who don’t yet have their corn crops planted.

Jeff Scates, a corn producer from southern Illinois (Gallatin and White counties) said his corn crop, while not completely planted, is going in at a “record” pace. With 1.5 inches of rain on April 23 and more rain during the weekend, it is likely he’ll be unable to complete corn planting until later this week.

“We already had good soil moisture (before the rain), though some of it was starting to get hard on top,” said Scates, adding that there was a bright side to the rainy spell. “(Dry surface soil) started to slow down the no-till, and now we can no-till again.”

Scates has only experienced one planting season when all of his corn was in the ground before the end of April, “and last year it was June before we even got started,” he said. “May the 10th to the 15th is usually when a lot of people are done with planting corn down here. After the last couple of years, people are pushing to get in the fields early this year.”

Like Taylor, Scates represents his district for the ICGA.
The five-year average for corn planting completion by April 19 in Illinois is 12 percent, according to NASS. Last year’s report on April 19 showed the Illinois corn crop as one percent planted, compared to the 23 percent five-year average.

Tricia Braid-Terry of the ICGA pointed out that as of April 12, only 1 percent of the state’s corn crop was reported planted. For that date, said Braid-Terry, 4 percent is the five-year state average. Last week’s aggressive planting by Illinois farmers represented a significant jump in the percentage of corn planted during the previous week, she reported.

The average statewide temperature for the week of April 12-18 was 60.7 degrees, or 7.8 degrees above normal.

The state averaged .05 of an inch of precipitation, a departure of minus .92 of an inch for the period.

Schaffner said as soon as last weekend’s rain clouds left the Peoria area he would begin preparing for soybean planting. Taylor said he hoped to begin planting soybeans by the end of this week, and was already looking forward to planting sweet corn, peas and Lima beans to grow and sell to a nearby Del Monte processing plant in Mendota.