QUINCY, ILL. -- An early planting season has some farmers doing a double take at their neighbor's fields. Corn and yes, even some soy beans are already on the rise.
"An unbelievable start to spring planting this year, earliest in the history that I'm aware of," Mike Roegge with the University of Illinois Extension said.
Roegge says most farmers are just starting to plant corn, but in some fields, you'll find corn has already emerged.
"That's a concern because they're talking 30 degrees [Tuesday] night. If we get down to 30 degrees or lower on that emerged corn -- and we could see some scattered frost -- we could see some pretty serious damage to that corn. So we're playing that by ear and seeing what happens," Roegge said.
The last three years brought very wet springs giving farmers a limited number of days to plant. But this year, the opposite is true.
"The ideal condition is what we had a couple weeks ago. It was very moist and very warm. There was very quick emergence. Now, we're seeing soil temperatures have dropped ten degrees, so we're seeing very low emergence."
But if you ask Roegge his opinion, he'll still give you the 'go ahead' to plant.
"Farmers haven't been working evenings at all. They've hardly made any attempt to plant corn with any grave interest, you know, working hard working long hours, because the soil's been so good. Temperatures have been so warm up until recently that they haven't had to press themselves to get corn planted. Just unheard of conditions," Roegge said.
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