‘Strung out’ planting season concludes

DWIGHT, Ill. — It took just short of four weeks for Dan Parker to finally get the last seed in the ground.

“Planting season was pretty strung out. We got a really early start planting before Easter around April 15. We started with our beans and then it rained Easter weekend. We got back in after that and mostly planted corn for a while. Between the rainouts and everything we finally finished planting corn and beans May 12,” said Parker on May 20.

“By the time we finished planting, we had our other corn and soybeans that were coming up, and some corn was having trouble with the crust. So, we hurried up and hooked the hoe up that day and started hoeing as soon as we got done planting. Thankfully, we got rained out from hoeing and that solved a lot of the crust issues and everything came up really good.”

Parker, a fourth-generation farmer, and his wife, Erika, farm with his father, Bob, and brother-in-law, Scott Mallaney, in Livingston and Grundy counties. His cousin, C.J. Parker, is also part of the farming operation.

Up Next

Parker, Illinois Corn Growers Association District 5 director, representing Grundy, Kankakee, La Salle and Livingston counties, and ICGA treasurer, looks forward to the organization’s upcoming events.

They include its summer meeting in Bloomington and a visit from Japanese media to learn more about ethanol and corn production.

“We’re pretty excited to be able to talk to them,” Parker said.

He’ll also be involved in planting the Dwight FFA plot when the soil is fit.

“The plot will be soybeans this year. The students are looking at high management versus standard or low management soybeans. Half of the soybeans will be fungicide and insecticide. I don’t know what all of the treatments are that they decided to put on the high management soybeans versus not putting it on so they can see all the difference,” Parker said.

His wife, Erika, Advanced Agrilytics precision agronomist, works with the students to develop a plan for the FFA plot.

“She has been meeting with them once a week or so and we’ll get it planted as soon as it dries up. Then they’ll put sweet corn on one end that they’ll give to the public. They’ll also plant popcorn on one end. They’ll bag that up and pop it at different events and sell some. We sold some at the FFA auction last year,” Parker noted.