Wheat

Digital agriculture is the next wave of technology that will help farmers increase their production and improve their management decisions.

The two most important forces shaping the cooperative business model are future farmers and talent management.

Garrett Hawkins, a Waterloo farmer, was elected president of the Illinois Corn Growers Association for 2024-2025 at its recent reorganizational meeting.

Year-over-year winter wheat production declined, while oats were up in Illinois, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s annual production summary for 2024.

Indiana Soybean Alliance Board Directors Mike Koehne and C.J. Chalfant were elected to leadership positions with the Soy Transportation Coalition during the group’s meeting in Alabama.

Cattle and sheep graze on permanent pasture, cover crops and crop residue on Pasture Grazed Regenerative Farm in northern Illinois.

A public hearing for a proposed wheat checkoff was held at the Illinois Department of Agriculture. The proposal calls for a 1.5-cent checkoff per bushel of wheat sold in Illinois.

A warm, dry fall gave the Rahn family the opportunity to finish harvest early and rain showers over the past several weeks improved the conditions for fall work.

Nearly every autopsy of Vice President Kamala Harris’s stinging White House defeat begins with some variation of the phrase, “Voters pointed to the rising price of food as their chief concern.”

Fall fieldwork is near completion for Berkeley Boehne after some much-needed rain slowed tillage for some of his fields.

The goal of the Illinois Grazing Lands Coalition is to help support livestock producers in building profitable, sustainable grazing operations.

Fall is a great time to enjoy the fruits of our labor as farmers and to remind us of our many blessings as we approach Thanksgiving. Be sure to give proper thanks to the author of those blessings.

Voters chose to send Donald Trump, who served his first term as U.S. president from 2016 to 2020, back to the White House in the Nov. 5 national election.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture backed off on its corn and soybean average yield projections in the Nov. 8 crop production report, but still maintains record high projections in the “I” states.

Production cuts provided a slice of support for corn and soybean prices after the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s supply and demand estimates report was released Nov. 8.

Lower corn and soybean production estimates resulted in slightly tighter supplies in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s supply and demand estimates report on Nov. 8.

Examples of typical and not-so-common cover crops used in corn and soybean rotations were featured in a recent plot tour on the Farm Progress Show grounds.

Agricultural economic activity has been flat to down modestly since early September, with some crop prices remaining unprofitably low.

As the cropping year winds down in his part of Illinois, Eric Miller looked back on his two decades of farming in the central part of the state with gratitude.

We are making good progress on harvest. Obviously, it’s been sunny and dry and warm. I would say soybeans are 98% done in the area and corn harvest is maybe 50% complete.

What a great harvest we had, huge crop and great weather to harvest in. Aside from the dusty road conditions, I do not recall an easier harvest ever.

Harvest is on pace for the Rahn family to finish earlier in 2024 than they have in many years.

An Illinois State University organics class toured a farm and milling facility to see up close the field-to-bag process.

After years of research and planning, Janie’s Mill began milling certified organic grain grown on Harold Wilken’s farm in 2017.

Warm, dry weather is helping farmers in northern Illinois to quickly harvest corn and soybeans with little need to run the crops through a dryer prior to storage.

With the current crises we face on all fronts, foreign and domestic, we need a strong leader and God’s help to get us through.

The focus at Schoepp Farms LLC is to keep soil and nutrients on the land.

We have all but finished our harvest for the year. Corn chopping went extremely smooth with no rain delays and to my recollection only one truck needing pulled all season long — surely a record.

From this growing season’s first survey-based crop forecasts in August through now, the U.S. Department of Agriculture continues to project record corn and soybean yield averages nationwide.

The updated marketing year-end grain stocks data provided a clearer picture of the beginning supplies for the new crop year in the agriculture supply and demand estimates report released Oct. 11.

There were no major discrepancies in the trade’s pre-report guesses and what the U.S. Department of Agriculture came out with in its Oct. 11 crop production and crop balance sheet report.

Harvest is in full swing for Mark Seib, a grain farmer from Posey County in the southwestern corner of Indiana.

Corn harvest started on the Rahn farm at the middle of September, which is typical for them.

Kyle Schminke deep tills all his farm ground. However, it is not done with a tractor and tillage equipment.

The Illinois Wheat Association Checkoff Committee is circulating petitions for a wheat checkoff program in the state. The proposal calls for a 1.5 cent checkoff per bushel of wheat sold.

While most farmers’ planters have been cleaned and put away and their focus is now on harvest, Eric Miller’s planter — along with his combine, grain cart and tractors — is ready to go.

As American grocery buyers await a verdict on Kroger’s two-year-old bid to buy Albertsons, the European Commission took just 35 days to give its blessing to the merger between two of the world’s largest grain merchandisers.

Rain at the end of August was good timing for the double-crop soybeans growing in northern Illinois.

New survey-based production estimates, slight downward tweaks in old crop ending stocks and no changes on the corn and soybean demand side were of note on the USDA’s supply and demand estimates report.

After waiting, not so patiently, for the corn to mature, we finally had a field last week get mature enough to start chopping. Now we will race to stay ahead of the corn getting too mature.

A bottle of Windex led Jessica Rutkoski from a high school in rural Wisconsin to working on crop research and improvement around the globe and back to Midwest wheat fields.

Wheat is strategically planted on the Rahn farm to provide opportunities for manure applications and tiling projects.

Rain makes grain, and two mid-August Department of Agriculture reports offered this year’s first in-the-field look at just how much corn, soybeans and wheat American farmers will grow this wet, grain-making year.

A Natural Resources Conservation Service display brought the field to the Illinois State Fair. The tabletop display demonstrated the interaction between water and soils with different characteristics and management practices.

The first survey-based crop forecasts for this growing season estimated record average yields nationwide and in the “I” states for corn and soybeans.

The season-average farm price projection continued edging downward as production out-paces demand, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Berkeley Boehne harvested an excellent wheat crop in July and his corn and soybean crops also look good at the start of August.

Headwinds hit the soybean market, pulling prices below the $10 mark to a four-year low, driven by abundant supply and relatively low demand reflected in the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s reports.

Summer is in full swing on Clay Geyer’s home fields, where he’s on the lookout for — and has already found — some plant diseases and weeds.

To gain a better perspective in the current November and December futures price volatility, a soybean trade specialist noted historic parallels in the past 20 years, buyer opportunities and demand potentials.