Researchers highlight latest finds at field days

This time of year, a visit to the test plots at the University of Illinois is as much fun for farmers as a county fair is for kids.

It’s a season for field days highlighting a year’s worth of crop research at university farms.

Nick Seiter, University of Illinois entomologist and Extension specialist, offered a preview of some of the research that will be highlighted at various field days this summer.

Any Urbana-Champaign crop research tour must include an update from a team member of corn and soybean high-yield guru Fred Below, a professor well known for his “Seven Wonders of the Corn Yield World.”

“This is his 39th crop,” Connor Sible, a member of Below’s team, says of Below’s long research career.

The team routinely gets corn yields with 300 bu./acre averages.