This year’s crop has very good potential.  Let’s protect it.

Comparing precipitation patterns: 2022 vs 2023

With all the talk about how dry things have been in east central Illinois this spring and into the summer months we decided to take a look and compare this year’s precipitation to last year which was also a dry year.  This year’s drought took place in the May-June timeframe while last year’s hit hard in June-July.  We finally received rain to break that drought in the last two weeks and as of July 10 we have overtaken 2022 rainfall amounts totally April-July. 

Here is a chart showing how much rain we got in the months of April-July in 2022 versus what we received this year.

2022

2023

Despite the similarities in rain totals from April-June.  There is one difference we wanted to point out between these two years and that is the precipitation totals from October-March leading up to the planting season.  From October 2021-March 2022 we received 17.8” of precipitation.  From October 2022-March 2023 we received 13.1” of precipitation.  That increased precipitation leading up to planting in 2022 helped carry us through the dry, hot weather we had later in the summer. 

We are very happy with what these rains have done for the crop.  I have added a photo below of some ears in the blister stage from corn planted April 15.  As you can see there is a lot potential in this crop.  The average blistered kernels on each ear were 44 long and 16 around. 

Below is Greg’s July 10th crop update on corn and soybeans after the recent rains. If you have any questions, want to review plans, or hear about some of the products we are using on our farm this year, please reach out to us!