Farm

Two of the cattle owned by Lurkins Brothers Polled Herefords of rural Vandalia enjoy the morning sun on Wednesday after temperatures dipped into the 20s Tuesday night.

The brothers, Darrin and James, raise the cattle on the Lurkins family farm, which is located east of Vandalia on U.S. Route 40.

Harvest progress was aided by 5.7 days suitable for fieldwork last week.
Corn harvested now stands at 89 percent, compared to the five-year average of 71 percent.
Soybeans harvested are at 94 percent, compared to the five-year average of 80 percent.
Many producers are also busy with fall tillage activities, along with fertilizer and lime applications, and seeding winter wheat.
Temperatures averaged 50.4 degrees, 1.2 degrees below normal with a few reports of heavy frost in the northern part of the state.

Clayton Paradee on Monday turns his tractor to till another round in a soybean field after it had been harvested.

He was working for Emerick Farms in a field about a mile north of Vandalia. Fayette County Farm Bureau Manager Ron Marshel estimates that about 85 percent of the county's crops has been harvested.  

By Dennis Bowman
Champaign Extension Center
What can we learn from the 2011 crop and season?
It has been a year of extremes, a very wet April started the crop season, and – depending on your location – it stayed wet, got almost normal or turned into a blistering drought.
The northern part of the state was wet throughout the season. The western and southern parts of the state were somewhat closer to normal. The central part of the state was hit with what has been meteorologically referred to as a moderate drought.