Franklin

Kingston

Genoa

Weekly - 9.3
Cumulative - 25.15

Franklin - Paul Taylor - The week ending July 24th was one for the record books. Primarily, the drought ended with late week rains totaling at least nine inches with mixed frustrations.
Rainfall came as 2 inches overnight Thursday. Friday afternoon brought another inch. Those rains were followed by another 5 inches overnight Friday. After dumping the over flowing gauge early Saturday, another 1.3” came Saturday morning. Adding those events we had at least 9.3” measured in our unofficial Pioneer rain gauge.
Good news of all this is of course the drought is broken. An added blessing was that little wind and apparently no hail accompanied the storms. I can see very little corn blown over or damage to buildings. The bad news of this was that we ended up with water in our partially finished basement. We’ll likely be dealing with that through most of the coming week. We are certainly not alone with that circumstance. I guess getting 25% of our normal annual precipitation in a 36 hour period can cause problems.
After my muddy mess with the pea harvest in late June, wouldn’t you know the sweet corn is ready for harvest this week? At least the water has stopped running in the waterways. Seems a lot of cars were stopped along that road this past week.
Paul W Taylor

Kingston - Russ Deverell - Jul.25th, We are at the Dells this weekend for a family vacation. I left the farm after dumping out 2.2 inches from Thursday night and Fri. morning. Our hired help says gauge had another 5 inches in it by Saturday morning. So add 7.2 for the week, way too much rain that will drown out any low areas. We were happy after the 2.2, thinking that was enough to get to maturity but mother nature had other plans. I cannot report on the other local impact of this much rain, but I suspect it safe to say wet basements and sold out sump pumps at retail stores are some of them. Wisconsin had it's own rain event about 24 hours before us. Milwaukee had 7+ inches Thursday that flooded the runways at the airport and washed out a sinkhole downtown big enough to swallow a suv and them some. Hope this weather gets back to normal and next week I can report more..
Russ D.

Genoa - Ron Peabody - Genoa Report: Week of July 18, 2010
The major headline for the week was RAIN, lots of rain. The “event” began as a whimper on Thursday with a barely noticeable 0.05” accumulation. Then on Friday thunderstorms added 2.4” to the total, and in the early hours of Saturday morning the big one unleashed a whopping 5.4” downpour. Total precipitation for the week: 7.85 inches. All those low spots and poorly drained areas, many replanted earlier, were once again engulfed, some lost entirely for this season’s production tally.
Ron Peabody

South Grove

Mayfield

Sycamore

Weekly - 8.30
Cumulative - 21.90

South Grove- Henry Burgweger - Hard to believe that we were wishing for rain these past two weeks, but I was. Then along came Friday morning, and Friday evening to expose 1.7in. in my gauge. Just perfect. The right amount that all got absorbed into the soil. Will now fill the ends out - plus add girth to the ear, not to leave out the development of the the soybeans. Couldn't ask for more. Then along came Friday night. At 9:30pm, I emptied the gauge of 1.7in., then at 4:30am (Saturday), I empty out another 5in. of rain. Whoooooa, enough!! Then to top it all off, I had another 1.6in. to top the the day off. Like I said, whooooooooooaaaaaa, had enough already. To much rain for now, but I'll be wondering if I might be praying for rain in about two weeks??????? Enjoy the weather!!!

P.S., My neighbor lost 4 hay racks in the flood. They might end up crashing into the BP oil rig in the gulf in a few weeks. Should help with the leak.
Henry

Mayfield -

Sycamore - Ed/ Eric Gabriel - Total Rainfall in Sycamore Township July 18-24 was 8.5"
That is not a typo, and most of the rain came between 11 pm Friday and 6 am Saturday. We had 1.3" early Friday morning and that would have been enough. Areas 10 miles to the south had less than half that much so it looks like the water will go down quickly and by the middle of the week most of the standing water should be gone. The crops are looking good other than the few places with standing water.

Eric Gabriel

Malta

DeKalb

Cortland

Weekly - 5.9
Cumulative - 21.90

Malta - Jim Quincer - This week, I had 5.9 inches of rain. I think that if we did not get any more rain, we might get a crop.

DeKalb - NIU Weather Station - Rainfall - 7/22 - .01: 7/23 - .74: 7/23 - 3.67 Total 4.42 inches.

Cortland - Dave Yaeger - This week was hot but not so dry. On the 23rd received a trace. The 24th a nice rain of .58 inches and then on the early moring of the 24th the sky opened up with 4.1 inches. As dry as it was the water soaked in and ran off very fast. With pollination over around here this will aid the filling. There will still be low areas that have drowned out that will remain wet. Have we had enough moisture to make a crop? To make an excellent crop? Time will tell.

Milan

Afton

Pierce

Weekly - 2.53
Cumulative - 16.19

Milan - University of Illinois Research Farm - Lyle Paul - Rainfall for the week was 0.64" on Friday and 1.89" on Saturday. Fungicide spraying continued this week. Some of the soybeans planted around May 20th are just moving into the R-3 stage of growth. This is the time that some people suggest spraying a fungicide &/or an insecticide on soybeans. Our results have been mixed and if insect numbers are not at treatment levels, then the likelihood of an economic return are low. Soybean aphids have been found, but the numbers have been low to this point.

Afton - Eric Lawler / Steve Glascock (Babson Farms) - 2.7" rain for the week. No damage in the immediate area. Fungicide spraying should be completed on most of the corn. Fungicide and insecticide treatments are in full swing for soybeans. Markets settled back from the recent gains this week.
Steve Glascock

Pierce - Jamie Walter - For the week ending July 24th we received a total of 3.9" of rain. Of that total, 3.5" fell during the big rains of Friday night. The other .4" fell Wed. night/Thurs. This area soaked the rains up very well. While there was a little ponding it was generally in areas already affected by much earlier rains. For the most part, the rain -- although heavy -- was very well received. Other than a few stragglers, corn is done pollinating, some has moved quickly into the milk stage. We have some early corn planted early that I calculate will blacklayer around Labor Day. Hopefully the heavy rains had the side benefit of drowning the green clover worms many of our soybeans have chewing on them. Sure have been a lot of butterflies/moths flying recently.

Shabbona

Clinton

Squaw Grove

Weekly - 2.32
Cumulative - 20.42

Shabbona -Mullins Farm - Rainfall - 2.32 inches

Clinton - Wesley Anderson - Weekly Rainfall - 1.7 inches

Squaw Grove - Leroy Cowan - We had 3.6 inches of rain this past week. From what I hear, we were lucky to get only that much. Seems like north and east of here it was much more. Not much going on except checking fields and such. Some beans on later planted fields were just sprayed. Not to many double cropped their wheat fields this year, around here, anyway. With the rains, spider mites are not as much of a problem. White mold will be the stinker. It's going to be an interesting fall Take care and have a good week.
Lee.

Paw Paw

Victor

Somonauk

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Victor - Roy & Lester Plote - Rain L- 2.1" R- 2.65"

Once again we see the spotty shower syndrome. My 2.138 miles north of Les was worth .55" this week. A little water stood in the low areas, but in general we are pleased with the amount. South of Leland got under 2". I do sympathize for our friends to the north. Been there, done that in my basement, too!
How much yield was lost in the heat and "dry spell"? How much can be saved with this rain? How much is now lost to flooding in the north? Can the beans turn out avg or will disease and drownout still pull the avg down? My crystal ball is broken and they can't seem to find me a replacement! Plan for the worst, hope and pray for the best.
The beans after wheat and peas really have a chance of making something with this rain. Had some sweet corn that was only 14 around and 34 long from a stand. Then thanks to Dean Johnson for some bi-color that was 20 x 42. Absolutely best corn I've had in years.
Talked with a friend from east central IL that said there are still unplanted fields around him from wetness. So I traveled I-39 and east to Danville on 74 and around Champaign, Douglas, Vermilion and Edgar Counties I saw some really great fields of corn say 40%, 40% mediocre and the last 20% has lost or never had nitrogen, or is drown out. Beans are the wild card. I'd say 60% are looking pretty well, maybe short in some areas, but August weather will make or break them. The other 40% is anything from stunted, late planted, thinned, weedy, and of course missing. They needed better weather the past couple weeks and a perfect August. Hard to say what the potential is but I can't imagine anything more than avg when the good and bad are combined.
Les and Roy Plote

Somonauk - Chris Frieders - Crop Report for the week of July 18th through July 24th.
It was another hot week last week. It seems like we have already had more heat this year than we did all of last year total!!! It was starting to get dry around here too, thankfully we got some rain at the end of the week. The only problem was that we didn't need all 2.8 inches of rain all at once. But I guess it could have been worse. There has been some bean spraying again last week, mainly fungicide and insecticide spraying. Although there isn't a huge bug pressure out there yet, but if you are spraying fungicide it might be worth it to look into spraying an insecticide as well. The corn spraying is pretty much completed now as well. Lets hope the crops continue to look good for the most part and continue to get rain and good heat.
Chris Frieders

Sandwich

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