View from the Cab: Cold not all bad
By Kent Casson
You may not have enjoyed the cold weather stretch we experienced this winter, but the ground sure did.
The deep freeze was not all bad – especially for the future corn crop which will be planted in the coming months.
“This is the coldest winter since 2013-2014 for Illinois and we grew a great crop in 2014,” explained Mike Toohill, an agronomist for ProHarvest Seeds during a Bank of Pontiac ag meeting in Fairbury.
Those deep freezes were also good for taking care of the insect situation in 2025. This could set the stage for quite a corn crop.
Many growers experienced corn leaf aphids out in their fields last summer which negatively impacted yield in some fields. Anything which was planted in mid to late May was impacted most.
The aphid primarily over-winters in Oklahoma and Texas and with the very cold weather they experienced, Toohill does not anticipate the aphid will be an issue for us this year. He observed the most aphids he has seen in the past couple of decades last summer.
“They are less likely to fly up and give us problems in ’25,” noted Toohill.
It may be hard to tell with winter hanging on, but our part of Illinois has been in moderate drought. What will this mean for the growing season? Time will tell. The last few summers saw dry Junes followed by timely rains. Toohill advises producers to closely watch the markets, especially if the dryness would linger into July this time.
When it comes to planting soybeans really early, Toohill isn’t a huge fan. While there is too much frost risk during the first week of April, Toohill is more open to the idea in the middle part of the month if conditions allow.
“The number one concern I usually have with the early beans is that frost taking some of our stand away.”
In case you were wondering, April planted corn is still the best compared to the May planted stuff, based on University of Illinois data.
“I did have a lot of 250 to 325-bushel field average corn and most of that was April planted,” Toohill concluded.
