Some dry days last week helped farmers make up for slow progress the week before as corn planting gained 11 points to almost be at the average for this time of year at 17 percent, according to the latest crop progress report out Monday.

Illinois and Missouri jumped ahead last week in corn planting progress, planting over one quarter of their crops in the week ending April 23, while North Carolina planted over 30 percent. Four percent of the crop nationwide has emerged, the same as last year and the five year average.

While the planting in Illinois was gaining momentum last week, I talked Tim Laatsch of the Agronomy Division at GROWMARK about how the warmer, drier winter combined with wet conditions this spring is causing winter annuals to thrive in some areas, providing a good habitat for cutworms. Laatsch says significant numbers of cutworms have been reported in the past three weeks so he suggests that growers be aggressively scouting early corn right now.

In this interview, Laatsch also talks about some of the other weed and disease pressures he’s seeing in the area: Interview with Tim Laatsch, GROWMARK