24 hours before we leave from Urbana and head north.  In preparation for the tour, I looked at 19 of the scheduled stops through the use of Agrible's Morning Farm Report.  Mainly I am trying to track the rainfall year to date and since early April, growing degrees days YTD and since early April and how it relates to the yearly averages.

Currently there are 7 fields still behind their normal average rainfall.  The stops in LaSalle and Stark County are both behind more than 4 inches from the 10 year average.  6 of the stops are more than 5 inches above the normal 10 year average.  Sioux County Iowa and Dodge County Nebraska are over 11 inches ahead of normal. 6 stops have more than 11 inches of rain since April 10.  So those folks who believe that we are dry or on the verge of drought everywhere, our random sample has shown that is clearly not the case.  It will be interesting to get into these fields over the next 5 days.

All of the stops have been warm.  On average we are trending about 6.5 days ahead of normal on growing degree days.  If we look back to the last couple of years we were 3-5 days behind a normal pace.  I personally think the biggest issue this summer is going to be the heat.  Up to this point in the season, the rains have simply been scattered and some as the numbers show have missed the rain and some would like to miss a rain.  Everyone has experienced the heat!

I attached a picture of the info to show you what I have been monitoring for a couple of weeks.