Jacobs welcomes recent rainfall

An emerging cornfield shown in Central Illinois this week / CIFN photo.

CHENOA – Don Jacobs who farms near Chenoa and Lexington in McLean County enjoyed the weekend rain that fell on Saturday.

“We were kind of to the point of needing it to help some of the soybeans emerge,” Jacobs told The Central Illinois Farm Network.

Jacobs admits it would be nice to “spoon feed” the growing crops rather than getting a big downpour all at once. Jacobs finished planting early last week and took a day off from fieldwork before pulling the planter back out to replant.

“We started planting beans when it was quite cold in the middle of April,” said Jacobs.

Even though many of his soybeans went into the ground before planting corn, Jacobs’ earliest planted soybeans look good so far. The soybeans planted before the week of wet weather a few weeks back were rougher.

“I think farmers who also planted corn in that late April stretch also had some troubles.”

Everything planted during the hot weather week in May popped out of the ground fine with great populations.

“Overall, we are very satisfied with what we have so far,” observed Jacobs.

The next big thing on the Jacobs farm will be side dressing corn acres with liquid nitrogen. They also have several tanks to clean and a few empty mini-bulk containers to return along with seed boxes. Mowing is also on the agenda before Memorial Day.

“I’m not sure when we’ll start side-dressing since the corn is still pretty small, but it’s probably not far away,” noted Jacobs.