State’s planting season off to a good start

Posted on April 28, 2020
Corn planting
USDA Illinois statistician Mark Schleusener says corn planting is up to 37 percent complete, compared to a 31 percent five-year average. (WJBC file photo)

 

By Dave Dahl

SPRINGFIELD – The state’s two major cash crops have begun 2020 on a strong note.

USDA Illinois statistician Mark Schleusener says corn planting is up to 37 percent complete, compared to a 31 percent five-year average. Corn has also begun emerging. Soybean planting reached 18 percent last week, well ahead of the five-year average of four percent.

It was a little too wet – “surplus topsoil moisture” – for 20 percent of Illinois farmland, and the rain wiped out almost half the week.

Dave Dahl can be reached at [email protected]

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