The Field Report

Trent Brandenburg does not plan on much fieldwork for this week, starting April 29, 2024. The huge squall line that extended from Texas to Green Bay, Wisconsin, over this past weekend, was far enough west to spare central Illinois from tornadoes but dropped unwanted rain on already-wet fields. Trent estimates he has about a third of his corn and a third of his soybeans planted. He does not expect to do much field work this week due to wet soils. Hopefully, warm temperatures will speed germination if the soil is not too waterlogged. A few sunny and windy days will try the topsoil quickly.

Trent displays the optimism farmers always seem to feel during planting season. “They predicted 2 to 3 inches of rain, and we didn’t get nearly that,” he observed, happy to have been spared ponding in his fields. The closest Illinois Soil Moisture sampling location to Trent’s farmland is in Champaign. The current data shows near-record high moisture at the 4-inch and 20-inch levels, and in the upper 80 per cent of record high at the 8-inch level. This is a marked improvement over the chronic drought of recent years, particularly at the 20-inch level.