Tale of two springs

FAIRFIELD, Ill. — Southern Illinois planters began rolling in the latter half of March after an extended stretch of warm, dry conditions.

According to weather data collected at the Southern Illinois Airport in Jackson County, the daily highs were at or above 70 degrees 17 times in March, including five days where it reached the mid-80s. Rain was limited to the first half of the month.

In contrast, the spring of 2025 is one that southern Illinois farmers want to forget with its relentless rains that continued into late June.

Last year, a large swatch of the area had 18 days of precipitation in April, 18 days in May and 22 days in June, ranging from thunderstorms to mist.

Early Planting

Matt Rush, who farms with this father, Jim, near Fairfield, started planting soybeans on March 25, the earliest they were ever able to do so.

“You know how it is. You get the planter out and you want to make sure it works. The conditions on March 25 were better than expected, so we started planting a few soybeans into our cover crops. We kind of rolled and ended up with two-thirds of our soybeans planted before April 1. Things went well,” Rush said.

“We know we were before the insurance day. We bought some rider that let us go little bit early, but it’s been our experience that our early beans have been our better beans year-in and year-out.”

About half of their pre-plant ammonia for corn was applied by April 6.

“The goal would be to be finish the ammonia application, finish the bean planting and then they’re saying 86 degrees by Sunday (on April 12) down here, and we’ll start rolling with corn. There’s a couple operations further to the south that are completely done, is my understanding,” Rush said.

The winter wheat is also looking good.

“We do a double-shot of nitrogen. The last shot went on about two weeks ago. The last trip we’ll make across the wheat is for fungicide once the wheat has headed out,” Rush said.

“It feels like things are a week or 10 days ahead of where they have been in the past for wheat, but that may just be an assumption. We did have quite a few warm days in March, so the wheat looks good.

“We all know the earlier we get the double-crop soybeans in, the better chance they have.”

He recalled the last time they planted in March was in 2012, another year farmers would like to forget. It was also before it was popular to plant soybeans ahead of corn.

“In 2012, ironically, we planted some corn in March, and we all know how that worked out — it did not,” he said.

Marketing Opportunities

Earlier planted — and earlier harvested — soybeans opens a marketing opportunity.

“One thing we looked at was there’s a pretty good premium on August beans into the elevator. We have a crush facility in Mount Vernon (in southwestern Indiana.) That’s where most of our grain goes. Anytime you can pick up an extra of 40, 50 cents, you have got to take a look at that,” Rush said.

Contrasting Springs

Looking back at the previous couple springs in southern Illinois, it was a challenge to even get a crop in. The extended wet weather also impacted double-crop soybeans.

The Rush farm typically have a 50-50 corn/soybean rotation and 200 to 300 acres of wheat that are harvested around mid-June followed by planting double-crop soybeans.

“We mudded the beans in last year. That’s not something that we’re proud of. But the unfortunate thing was once we mudded it in, it quit raining. So, double-crop beans were below what we’d expect. They were around 35, 40 bushels per acre. In years past, we’ve had better beans, 50 to 55 bushels,” Rush said.

“Last year is just on all of our minds. It was a huge struggle. Any corn that we planted that first week in June last year did not make it. We made the decision on June 23 to go back in and replant 500 acres of corn. Some corn was good where we had rain, but where we didn’t get the rain, it was a flop. When it quit raining, it quit raining.

“I always try to find the good, and the good was we had a really good fall. We’re able to get a lot of field work and a lot of lime spread last fall. That’s one thing I attribute to our early planting this year is we were able to get a cover crop established, get some chiseling done or some fall tillage and that allowed us to go to the field and not have to prepare as much this spring.”

Planting Green

They opted to plant into their green cover crops for the first time.

“We have not terminated the cover crop. Our thinking is let that stay green for a little bit longer and then terminate it here after the beans get up and going. That would give the soybeans some protection against heavy rains and even a frost was my thinking,” Rush said.

They use wheat as a cover crop.

“We broadcast wheat with our fall fertilizer after harvest and use our vertical tillage tool in the cornstalks to incorporate it. Some of the neighbors around here use a little bit of cereal rye. We’ve not had good experience with that in front of corn, but in front of beans we found that this works pretty well,” Rush said.