North Central Illinois Ag Mag - Winter 2025 by Shaw Media

Ag teachers mobilize hay donation

By JEANNINE OTTO jotto@shawmedia com

PONTIAC, Ill. — Two central Illinois agriculture teachers already had plenty on their plates as they watched and listened to the news.

As Liz Harris prepared herself and her students at Normal Community High School for the National FFA Convention in Indianapolis, she was watching coverage of the devastating flooding in the last week of September in Tennessee and North Carolina caused by Hurricane Helene.

FFA adviser Jesse Faber was busy at Pontiac High School, too. Along with his preparations for the National FFA Convention, he and his family were getting ready to attend the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Wisconsin.

As Harris watched the coverage of the floods and the devastation, she knew that farmers and their families were among those impacted by the catastrophic flooding. So, she and Faber decided to see if they could help.

“When we first started this, we didn’t know exactly how it would go. We just knew we needed to do something,” Harris said.

What that turned out to be were multiple, massive loads of hay, as well as a financial donation that went directly to the farmers and families in east Tennessee who suffered

“When we first started this, we didn’t know exactly how it would go. We just knew we needed to do something.”

Liz Harris AG TEACHER

loss due to the Helene floods.

Even as they knew they had to do something, Faber and Harris also knew they wanted

to help in a way that would directly affect farmers who had been impacted by the flooding and that would get those farm-

ers help that wasn’t already being provided.

“We wanted to make contact with people on the ground to make sure that whatever we were able to provide was something they would actually need,” Harris said.

Faber contacted another ag teacher, Buddy Crass, who is the agriculture teacher and

The total hay donations totaled around 84 round bales, 20 big square bales and over 500 small square bales

Hay donations were gathered at the Livingston County Fairgrounds in central Illinois and then loaded onto semi and gooseneck trailers for the trip to east Tennessee

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FFA adviser at Northview Senior Academy in Sevier County in Kodak, Tennessee.

“He said the one thing I think we are going to be in trouble on, that we can’t get, is hay. He said if we had any way to get hay in their direction, they would very much appreciate it,” Faber said.

With that in mind, Faber got to work and got on the phone.

“I reached out to some folks in the Pontiac area who have big hearts and a lot of enthusiasm to do something like this. I asked if they were on board and we started putting it together,” he said.

Organizing the donation, collection and transportation of multiple tons of hay, in varying shapes and sizes of bales, from central Illinois to eastern Tennessee, was in itself a big job.

“We were trying to organize trucking before we knew how much hay we had. Then once we found out we had more trucks, then we wanted to fill

money. We had trucks and trailers that were committed.”

At the start of the project, the two teachers also wanted to make sure that anyone who wanted to donate, whether it was hay or cash, could do so in the way that was easiest for the donor.

“One of the overarching goals of this was to make it easy for people who wanted to help and to do whatever we could for people so they could help in whatever way was best suited for them,” Faber said.

That meant going around to farms in the area to pick up hay. Those who were able delivered their hay to the Livingston County Fairgrounds.

up the load,” Faber said.

Transportation donations came in from farms and agribusinesses throughout central Illinois, including Stoller International, Schneider Trucking, S&S Chemical, Siegel Farms and Mackinson Dairy Farm.

As word of the donation

spr-ead, donations of hay and money rolled in.

“I had people who mentioned, ‘We were blessed with an amazing hay crop this year — this just makes sense to do,’” Faber said.

“We had someone who drove down from Wisconsin to bring us hay. Folks donated

“Some of the FFA members went out and collected some of the hay. People brought some to the farm. I took a trailer and made a couple of trips to pick up hay,” Faber said.

“We had donors who brought their hay to the fairgrounds. If they called and said we want to donate, but we don’t have a way to get it there, we tried to make that work. If they were able to get it there, that was good, too.”

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Hay to flood-stricken farmers in east Tennessee was delivered in early November Volunteers from central Illinois made the hay deliveries in two trips�

Members of Pontiac High School FFA and Normal Community High School FFA worked on a hay donation project organized by their advisers

Faber knows what it means to be affected by a natural disaster. In June 2015, the Faber family farm near Sublette, in Lee County, was damaged by an EF-2 tornado.

A year later, in June 2016, Faber’s home in Pontiac sustained damage from an EF-2 tornado.

“There are people who end up in circumstances that they could never imagine. There are people who end up in situations that are beyond their wildest dreams,” Faber said.

“As someone who has been impacted by natural disasters, I know that you are in shock and you don’t even know where to start. Then when people start showing up to help, all of a sudden it changes your perspective on the situation.”

The hay was delivered in two trips. Faber made the first trip, along with Mitch Miller, Darrin Sass and Matt Snyder, in early November.

“We ended up with about 84 round bales and another 20 big squares and then the semi had 540 small squares,” Faber said.

Loading the hay for the trip to Tennessee also proved to be a challenge.

“The bales were all a little bit different. If you’re hauling for yourself, they are probably coming out of the same baler and they’re consistent. We had a wide variety of sizes,” Faber said.

“We had a great crew who

helped us load in Pontiac. They didn’t join us for the trip down, but they were really instrumental in helping us get everything loaded and strapped.

“Jason Bunting, our state representative, was there to help load. He moves hay of different sizes, and he and his brother, Chris, helped us get the bales loaded and strapped.”

The first trip included two semis and two trucks with gooseneck trailers loaded with hay. Another semi of square bales went a week later.

The reason for the donation project served as a learning experience for students.

“They are a long ways from it, and for a lot of them, they don’t understand the topography and how that area is so much different than what we are used to in central Illinois,” Faber said.

“They wanted to look up maps of the area and that led to a discussion about what it’s like to live and farm in a different part of the country and what this event actually was and that was valuable for them.”

Faber and Harris said the project was another reminder of the cooperation that exists in the ag education and FFA communities.

“As we all know, with anything within FFA, if there’s one chapter who’s involved in something, everybody will jump in and help,” Harris said.

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Strong exports, ethanol demand

By TOM C. DORAN tdoran@shawmedia com

PEORIA, Ill. — Bolstered by surprises in the December supply and demand estimates report, corn enters 2025 with strengths in exports and ethanol demand.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture surprised the market with hikes in corn exports by 150 million bushels and corn for ethanol use by 50 million bushels in last month’s balance sheet.

“The one thing we’ve seen is maybe more confirmation that old crop corn demand may be a little bit more real,” said Joe Janzen, University of Illinois agricultural economist.

“There was this notion that corn demand was a little more front-loaded this year with people trying to avoid the potential retaliatory tariffs and moving those sales up. That still may be true to some degree, but there’s some confirmation that we’re in a pretty good export picture for corn and soybeans, but especially for corn.

“Just thinking about the overall supply and demand picture, we thought we were going to keep building stocks and that’s going to be the overhang that prevents any sort of rally that might occur in the new year either on old crop or new crop pricing. We got a little bit of a reprieve from that.

“We’re still in a pretty wellsupplied market situation, but definitely now there is the po-

tential. I mean the market is already giving us some of that with corn price closer to $4.50 per bushel than $4.”

DEMAND TRIFECTA

Janzen compared corn demand to a three-legged stool, led by feed, ethanol and exports.

Ethanol use represents 36% of corn use, feed is 39% and exports 16%. The remaining 9% is for feed and other industrial use.

“Exports is really kind of the flex piece that picks up the slack when we have a big crop like we had last year,” Janzen said.

“We’ve seen two solid months of really strong exports sales, particularly between the U.S. and Mexico. In the last few months, the export sales pace of actual shipments has moved above what is sort of normal for this time of year.

“Up to just before Thanksgiving, we’ve already shipped off about 1.25 billion bushels. That’s more than halfway to our total export sales for this marketing year. That’s above the historic pace, above the pace that we saw last year.

“Even if we don’t maintain this strong pace, we should get to USDA’s projection and fill that demand side of the balance sheet the way the

market expects at this point.”

There has been a lot of chatter about the extent to which these sales — particularly to Mexico — are frontloaded to potentially avoid U.S. tariffs.

“If Mexico was to impose retaliatory tariffs on corn, they’d like to have a bulk of their exports for this year done before that happens,” Janzen said.

“I think the trade has a very mixed mind about that. I do think we can get to that 2.3 billion bushels this year. We’ve had such a good start already to the export program for corn to Mexico, but also to Latin America.

“Colombia is a major destination for U.S. corn. That’s really been a bright spot where we were shipping a lot of corn to China two or three years ago and that really has shut down.”

PRODUCTION, USE

For 2024-2025, the USDA is anticipating continued supply growth, but not to the extent seen year-over-year between 2022 and 2023 in terms of total available supply of corn.

“We saw it grow more slowly, but we also anticipated usage would grow the same way that it did. Last year we saw the pace of use decline as we moved through the year. We saw a lot of corn move, particularly through the summer, that got us to a lower stocks-to-use number than we were anticipating,” Janzen said.

“I’m really looking at pace of use as a key indicator. I’m also thinking about yield and acreage for next year. We saw a lot of reports of good yields this last growing season in different parts of the country.

“For historical context,

Janzen

the trend yield for U.S. corn and soybeans yields have followed a remarkably stable trend with 35 years of basically linear growth. We deviate from trend line a little each year, but it’s remarkably consistent.

“U.S. farmers have been able to grow yields using modern technology and production practices, high-quality farm management techniques. We saw a pretty big crop, but only slightly above trend line.

“It’s not outside of the historical experience to see 10 bushels per acre above trend. If we get 10 bushels above trend, prices will have to move lower, especially at harvest.”

PRICE RATIO

The corn-soybean price ratio favors corn in 2025.

“I think USDA has it right that it will favor corn in 2025 and we will see a swing back to corn acres,” Janzen said.

“Since 1990, that ratio has been about 2.3 and over the last decade that’s favored corn strongly over soybeans.”

What does all of this mean for corn going into 2025?

“We will get more certainty about that international demand peak,” Janzen said.

“USDA’s long-run production projection is a pretty conservative estimate for production at 182 bushels per acre (for its 2025-2026 baseline) with a little bit of a pullback in export demand to 2.275 billion bushels.

“Putting that all together, we’re still adding 300 million bushels to ending stocks. We’re continuing to grow the stocks-to-use ratio. That’s going to weigh on the market going forward.

“There is a little bit of good news as we think about what that means for prices. I think we are down in a level where we’re going to see some responses by some of our trading partners to low prices and see some of that crops soaked up in terms of ending stocks and prices don’t fall that much further.

“But they do have to fall a little bit if we see higher corn acres. Prices kind of line up with that expectation.”

Build

Well-supplied soybean market pressures prices

By TOM C. DORAN tdoran@shawmedia com

PEORIA, Ill. — Global soybean supplies that are already at high levels are expected to grow in the first months of 2025.

“You have to be sort of less bullish given the very, very narrow trading range that we’ve been in for the last few months,” said Joe Janzen, University of Illinois agricultural economist.

Brazil farmers begin their soybean harvest in January with production estimated at 169 million metric tons, or nearly 6.210 billion bushels.

“With that big Brazilian crop coming, the world supply-demand situation is already at very high stocks levels, and that is expected to grow through this next marketing year. Every Brazil crop estimate that we’ve seen come out is inching higher. We’re going to get some confirmation on that in January,” Janzen said.

Brazil also continues to add large chunks of soybean acreage each year.

“The big thing weighing on the soybean market and why we see strength for corn relative to soybeans is we’ve seen almost 20 years of year-overyear growth in Brazilian soybean acres,” Janzen said.

“They’re adding three million, four million acres every year of soybeans, partly because they’ve been able to shift corn production to a

second crop in the major production region. They’ve also been able to convert a lot of degraded pasture lands to soybean production.

“That will continue to weigh on the market no matter what news we get about weather. They’re adding another three

Banking for the Busy Farmer

million acres this year. They added five million the year before. They added six million the year before that.

“Even if we don’t plant a single additional acre of soybeans in the U.S., this is going weigh on our prices here.

“The market is certainly

saying, ‘We don’t expect the need for higher soybean prices to ration out soybeans anytime soon. The market is well supplied.’”

DEMAND PIE

Meal production and exports are critical pieces of the soybean demand pie. Soybean meal production represents 45% of demand, exports is 43%, 6% is oil for biofuels and 6% is for oil for food and other uses.

“We’ve heard a lot of talk about a renewable diesel boom, about the importance of biofuels for the soybean market, but it’s important to remember that domestically crushed soybeans for biofuels is only about 6% of the total U.S. soybean volume” Janzen said.

“We’ve seen the smaller portions of the pie get a little bit bigger mainly because of the growth in biofuels, but exports are still critical.

“As we think about how does this supply and demand situation change as we move forward through the remainder of the 2024-2025 marketing year and into marketing the 2025 crop, we should keep those use proportions in the back of our minds.”

There has been some strengthening in domestic crush demand.

“We’ve seen new crush capacity come on line over the last several years. There’s

See SOYBEAN, Page 14

Brazil is increasing its soybean crop by three million acres every year

SOYBEAN

FROM PAGE 13

some room for that to continue going into 2025,” Janzen said.

“We have seen exports bounce back from a comparatively poor 2023. Th-ere’s been a little bit of strength in demand for U.S. soybeans around the world, but the overall story is one of stock growth.”

There has been a shift in soybean export seasonality trends the last few years.

“The last few months have been pretty positive, but the worry is we see the export sales program turn to what happened last year where over time we’ve seen a change in the seasonality of the soybean market,” Janzen said.

“We’ve typically seen demand for U.S. soybeans is strong up until January or

February and then the tap starts to shut off. However, the last couple of years we get to January and the Brazilian soybeans come to the international market and the demand for U.S. soybeans really kind of dried up.

“Soybeans to China is really a two-horse race between the U.S. and Brazil. September through the end of the year, there’s a big movement of U.S. soybeans and then the tap shuts off and all of the movement is dominated by Brazil. The U.S. component of that export picture has shrunk a little bit.”

BALANCE SHEET

The soybean stocks-to-use ratio was 6.1% in 2022-2023 when the season average price was $14.20 per bushel. It increased to 8.3% in 20232024 with an average price of $12.40 per bushel.

USDA’s December supply and demand estimates have a 10.8% stocks-to-use and

projected average price of $10.80.

“The amount of inventory we have at the end of the marketing year is growing relative to the amount that we’re using.This market is reasonably well-supplied at anything over a 10% stocksto-use ratio. We moved there last year,” Janzen said.

“We’re going to grow stocks if we have a normal crop in the U.S. Even with a little growth in domestic crush and exports, we keep growing stocks.

“USDA’s average prices is at $10.80 for this year. It’s hard to sell soybeans at $10.80 in the market. There’s not too many sales, particularly in the last six months.

“The big thing is we keep building stocks and it keeps weighing on the market.”

MARKETING

Crop prices have fallen to long-range average levels with

the tariff shadow overhead.

“There are a whole set of threats, especially geopolitical, that could mean lower prices in the short run. You want to look for opportunities, have a marketing plan that commits you to action if we do get rallies,” Janzen said.

“The wins are going to be relatively small. So, it’s not going to be $1 a bushel or $2 a bushel. We’re thinking more like 25- to 50-cent rallies are opportunities to make grain sales.

“More sophisticated marketing tools do not automatically produce wins. That’s what our date from the Illinois Farm Business Farm Management shows.

“If we’re thinking about post-harvest grain marketing in particular, weigh the full cost of making that decision. All gains and losses must be calculated net for the full cost when storing grain.”

‘Sense, act, decide’

‘Superhuman’ advances in ag equipment

By MARTHA BLUM mblum@shawmedia�com

MALTA, Ill. — Advances in technology of agricultural equipment are giving farmers new opportunities to control various processes.

“As we think about artificial intelligence, the three main things are how do we sense, act and decide,” said Clint Chaffer, John Deere product marketing lead for precision upgrades.

“Ultimately, it’s giving us superhuman outcomes that we could not control by ourselves without sensors,” said Chaffer during a presentation at the Illinois Soybean Growers 2024 Farm Business Summit.

Sensors are about focusing on job outcomes.

“Everybody has a little bit

different tillage practice so we got to ensure the job is being done correctly and efficiently,” Chaffer said.

Chaffer

Using precision upgrades, the marketing lead said, farmers are able to add sensors and cameras to tractors they own today to make them autonomous.

“It depends on the year of the tractor and the compatibility, but you will be able to bring a piece of equipment up to the latest technology without buying brand new equipment,” he said.

“There are sensors we can put on planters so you don’t have to get out of the cab,” he noted. “FurrowVision is a piece of hardware that’s installed right behind the disc openers.”

FurrowVision includes a laser and camera that looks at

the depth of the furrow in real time and sends a video to the cab of the tractor.

“It shows you if the furrow is structured correctly and then you can decide what settings you need to change to increase the quality of the furrow,” Chaffer said.

If the furrow is too structured, a farmer may decide to decrease the down pressure on the planter.

“If I’m getting a furrow that’s falling apart, maybe I’m going to put a little more down pressure or if I’m getting trash in the furrow, I need to adjust the row cleaners,” Chaffer said.

“We are really focusing on how to maximize emergence and stand by making sure we’re monitoring the furrow,” he said. “As we continue to add sensors and automation, you can imagine that maybe instead of me making the changes, the system is making the changes.”

See & Spray is a machine learning technology for John Deere sprayers that provides a

AP PHOTO

A convention-goer exits a John Deere 9RX Tractor at the John Deere booth during the CES 2025 tech show in Las Vegas The 9RX models feature precision ag technologies

targeted spray application.

“We have three different types of See & Spray — Select, Premium and Ultimate,” Chaffer said.

“For See & Spray Premium, we can upgrade a sprayer all the way back to 2018, as long as your sprayer has 100 or 120-foot booms, ExactApply and BoomTrac Pro 2,” he said.

“See & Spray Ultimate comes from the factory and it’s a two-tank system,” he explained. “This system allows you to put two different applications down on the same pass — a broadcast and a targeted application utilizing the See & Spray technology.”

The See & Spray technology is available for corn, soybeans and cotton.

“It can tell the difference between a soybean plant and a weed or a corn plant and a weed and spray only the weed so you don’t need to spray the entire field,” Chaffer said.

“We can go 12 mph with Premium and 15 mph with Ultimate,” he said. “That comes down to the vision processing units — the Premium has six and Ultimate has 10 — so more VPUs means more processing power and the sprayer can go faster.”

When See & Spray Ultimate

was first launched, Chaffer said, the operating speed was 12 mph.

“In the middle of the season, our engineers figured out how to make it go faster, so you get an update and the next day you can go 15 mph,” he said. “This technology continues to get better, even throughout the season.”

Farmers can evaluate their fields with weed pressure maps through the See & Spray system.

“The green, yellow and red areas show where the weed pressure is,” Chaffer said. “I think it will be really interesting to start analyzing these maps year over year.”

The marketing lead provided an example of an Illinois farmer who ran See & Spray Premium on a 2018 sprayer over his 2,000 acres of soybeans.

“He saw a 66% savings in product and a little over $7,000 in total savings,” Chaffer said.

The farmer changed his herbicide application program from the prior year.

“He put down a pre-application, came back with an early post with a residual and both those were broadcast not using See & Spray,” Chaffer said. “Then he went back in with a third pass using See & Spray

for contact only and that’s where he saw the savings.”

For his 3,000 acres of corn, the marketing lead, the farmer had a 59% product savings.

“They ran several different spray programs and they had a little over $24,000 in savings,” Chaffer said.

“If you have a sprayer that already has ExactApply and BoomTrac Pro 2, it costs $25,000 to add See & Spray to a sprayer,” he said. “That’s a pretty good investment.”

Automation is also available on John Deere combines.

“The latest one which I think is most exciting is predictive ground speed automation,” Chaffer said.

“This uses cameras on the cab looking at the height and the biomass of the crop in front of you and also utilizing satellite imagery that has been taken throughout the season to determine the speed of the machine before it gets to that area,” he explained.

“If there’s a large area of heavy biomass, it may start slowing down before you get to that area,” he said. “It makes those adjustments on the fly which can reduce the stress on the operator and allow him to focus on other things.”

AP PHOTO People view an autonomous lawn mower at the John Deere booth during the CES tech show this month in Las Vegas�

Historic crop price perspective

The ebb and flow of markets

By TOM C. DORAN tdoran@shawmedia com

EAST PEORIA, Ill. — The ebb and flow of crop prices creates a never-ending challenge for farmers’ financial positions.

Nick Paulson, Gardner Hinderliter professor at the University of Illinois College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences, gave a historical perspective of the price swings.

“Yields are kind of the bright spots when it comes to farm income, particularly in Illinois. We have had a really good 10-year run of yields in Illinois for corn and soybeans,” said Paulson at a recent Farm Economics Summit.

“I say that because we have consistently, with the exception of 2019, been above trend yield since the 2012 drought. We’ve got a string of nine out of 10 years where corn and soybean yields have been above the level we would expect in a year with normal growing conditions.

“In some of the lower income years we had from 20132014 through 2019, those extra bushels were obviously helpful, as they were helpful in 2021 and 2022 in some of those high income years.

“This is not necessarily the story nationally over that same time period. We’ve actually had some relatively disappointing national corn yield.

“We may have had some record crops in some of those years, but from the yield perspective nationally it was maybe right at or slightly below trend yield, but here in the Midwest, in Illinois, we’ve had a really positive yield experience.”

An optimist would say that upward yield trend will con -

tinue in 2025 to offset the lower prices and high costs.

The pessimist would say farmers are due for a bad year from a yield and income standpoint.

“I don’t think either one you can say has better odds than the other. That isn’t to say this pattern will continue or we’re due for a bad year. It’s just pointing out the fact that we have had a really good decade-long run above expected corn and soybean yields in Illinois in general,” Paulson said.

“Obviously, individual farm situations in pockets of the state can vary from year to year, but on average the yield side of the story has been overall very positive.”

The most recent price peak was during an 18-month period from August 2020 into 2022, “where the best time to sell corn and soybeans was ‘tomorrow’ consistently for about a year and a half,” Paulson said.

“We are now in two years of the opposite situation. The last two years, the best time to sell corn or soybeans basically would have been ‘yesterday.’”

The national average soybean price in the current marketing year is projected at $10.20 per bushel, with corn at $4 and wheat at $5.60.

“The bad news about this is while these prices are not low historically, we are back to where we were going into the 2020 through 2022 rallies. We’re basically back on the price side to where we were in that 2019 and early 2020 period,” Paulson said.

“The price levels that we’re currently at are not low relative to where we think that long-term average price is, the plateau we’ve been at since the ethanol build period

started in the mid-2000s.”

The long-term average soybean price from 2006 to 2024 is $10.63 per bushel and corn is $4.38.

“We’re a little bit below that now, but we’ve been above it for multiple years in the last 20 and we’ve been below that long-term average for a multiyear run in the last 20 years, as well. So, we shouldn’t necessarily expect that prices are automatically going to somehow magically rebound to that $6 and $14 range for corn and soybeans,” Paulson said.

PRODUCTION COSTS

Over the past 25 years, production costs have gone up faster than incomes when there were higher incomes and higher prices due to the ethanol build period.

“They plateaued and came down a bit during the lower price, lower income period from 2014 to 2019, and then we saw the very quick, even bigger adjustments than we’ve seen historically year-overyear for costs in 2021, 2022 and 2023 crop years with those higher we saw coming out of the pandemic,” Paulson said.

According to Farm Business Farm Management data, non-land costs reached almost $700 per acre in central Illinois in 2023 and $1,052 per acre when adding an average cash-rent level in a 50-50 corn-soybean rotation.

The U of I ag economists projected costs to go down slightly in 2024 from a peak of $1,001 per acre in 2023 and potentially another $40 or $50 per acre drop in production costs for 2025.

“That first drop from 2023 to 2024 was almost entirely driven by lower fertilizer prices relative to where we were at in the 2022-2023 pricing period,” Paulson said. “There are lower fuel costs,

See HISTORIC, Page 20

Paulson

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HISTORIC

FROM PAGE 19

too, that are very much tied to energy markets.

“The decline from 2024 to 2025 that we’re projecting is a combination of continued lower fertilizer prizes relative to the 2022, 2023 peak.

“We are also budgeting in for 2025 a slight downward adjustment in some of the cashrent levels that we’re looking at regionally across Illinois. Maybe we’re being optimistic, but a $15 to $20 per acre reduction in cash rents is built into that drop in 2025.

“Unfortunately, with those adjustments down, we’re not back to costs pre-2020. We’re still above those levels, but prices are back down to prices we saw heading into 2020.

“We were in a low profit period then, and we’re in a lower profit period now, because we have prices back to those levels, but costs haven’t adjusted back down to those levels yet and I don’t know if we should expect that, too.”

This translates to a break-even for central Illinois for covering non-land costs if a farmer owns their own land of $3.20 per bushel for corn and $6.55 for soybeans.

In a typical cash-rent scenario for central Illinois, the break-even costs for 2025 are $4.60 for corn and $11.05 for soybeans.

The break-even for those in northern Illinois who own the land is $3.30 for corn and $6.75 per bushel for soybeans, while the break-even in a cash-rent scenario are estimated at $4.60 for corn and $11 for soybeans.

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For southern Illinois, the break-even estimate for owned land is $3.65 and $8.35 per bushel, and cash-rented land break-even is $4.64 and $11.55 per bushel.

CASH RENTS

PRINCETON | SPRING VALLEY

Cash rents have more than doubled in the last 20 years and are up 20% since 2021.

Paulson presented net returns on cashrented land in a 50-50 corn-soybean rotation for central Illinois.

“We had negative returns in 2014 and 2015. Returns for 2023 were negative $93 per acre. The 2025 projection is slightly below that,” he said.

The average farmer return over the last 23 years was $103 per acre in a rotational system in central Illinois on cash-rented farmland.

The southern Illinois average return was $80 per acre, and it was $90 per acre in northern Illinois over 23 years on cashrented farmland.

“There were some years that were well above that, but also plenty of years that were below that,” Paulson said.

Drought periods result in drier topsoil in parts of Illinois

By MARTHA BLUM mblum@shawmedia com

MALTA, Ill. — The topsoil in northern Illinois is drier that normal for this time of the year.

“We have 19 sites around the state, including one near DeKalb, where we have measured soil moisture for the past 30 years,” said Trent Ford, Illinois state climatologist at the Illinois State Water Survey at the University of Illinois.

“These records are unprecedented across the U.S., but the problem is soil moisture is highly variable and it’s almost impossible to measure at the scales we need,” said Ford during a presentation at the Illinois Soybean Growers 2024 Farm Business Summit.

The soil moisture levels from the Illinois Climate Network are measured at 4-, 8- and 20-inch depths.

“Anything above 30% water by volume is pretty good, but it depends on your soil,” Ford said.

“The point where plants are really struggling to pull water out of the ground is at 15 to 20%.”

At the DeKalb site, the 4 and 8-inch depths are below the typical amount at this time of the year based on the 30-year average.

“But it’s still at 30% water content so that’s OK,” Ford said. “At the 20-inch depth, we are pretty much right at normal.”

During the wintertime, the state climatologist said, soil moistures almost never get below 30%.

“There is nothing pulling the water out of the ground because plants are either dead or dormant and evaporation is pretty minimum even when the sun is out,” he said.

According to the drought monitor map, much of northern Illinois is in a moderate drought.

“This is an awful time of the year for monitoring drought because it’s winter,” Ford said. “The drought we’re experiencing is mainly a result of an extremely dry September and October.”

It was dry in a lot of Illinois during the spring of 2024.

“Then it was hot and it cooled down in July,” Ford recalled.

“During July, the average temperature in the state was less than June,” he said. “There are only three times that has happened previously.”

“If we’re going to experience two periods of drought, having them in the spring and fall and then having it wetter in the summer is not a terrible pattern,” the climatologist said.

The Condition Monitoring Observer Reports, or CMOR, are organized by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska.

Anyone can provide a report completely anonymously about what the conditions look like at their location on the website at go.illinois.edu/cmor.

“It is really helpful and information goes into the database and gets rolled into recommendations about drought,” Ford said.

For looking ah-ead, the National Weather Service Center Climate Prediction Center provides seasonal temperature and precipitation outlooks.

“When you go beyond the seven-day forecast, the precision declines, but we can say if it’s going to be warmer or colder than normal,” Ford said.

“This forecast is very La Niña like, with warmer in the southern U.S., colder in the Pacific Northwest and Northern Plains and equal chances for Illinois of it being a colder or warmer winter,” he said.

“We do know our winters are getting warmer and they are actually warming about five times the rate of our summers,” the climatologist said.

“Those trends are included in this forecast, and despite the warming trend, the Climate Prediction Center is still showing equal chances of an above or below normal winter.”

So far in 2024, northern Illinois is experiencing its warmest year on record, Ford reported.

“We’ll see what happens in December, but we’re two to three degrees above the next warmest year, which was in 2012,” he said.

“The shot of cold air in late November cooled us down, but either way this year is going to end up in the top three warmest years on record.”

For the winter and spring precipitation outlooks, Ford said the forecast is dry across the Southern Plains and sou-theast and wet through the Great Lakes and Ohio Valley.

“We’re not coming into this winter with full soils and streams so there is capacity,” he said. “When we get rain or snow and it melts, the soil takes it first and then releases it to the streams more gently.”

The National Weather Service provides Hazards Pages that indicate the likelihood of having hazardous weather.

“I find these a lot more helpful on a day-to-day basis,” Ford said.

The outlooks are for three to seven days and eight to 10 days.

“It could be anything from a freeze or frost to drought conditions, heavy rains or excessively cold or hot temperatures,” Ford said.

Climate Toolbox, the climatologist said, has a neat tool that provides projections for future climate conditions by using climate models.

“Here’s an example for Sycamore, Illinois, of total summer evaporation in inches compared to historical,” he said. “The projection is for increasing evaporation of 1.5 to 3 inches during the summertime from the warmer summers having more evaporation.”

Ford

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