“We're not making any big changes this year,” says Jim Klever, who farms 3,850 tillable acres in northern Illinois. “In a typical year, we are 60-40 (favoring corn); it depends which farms are going into which crops. We just picked up another farm, which tilts us 10% more into beans this year, but it's dictated by rotation.”

Part of his acreage allocation is driven by his 400,000-bu. storage capacity. “We're prepared to haul 80,000-100,000 bu. out in the fall, so we keep the acres somewhere where we don't overflow on storage. You get into a way of doing things that works and stick with it.

“The pricing ratios would have to change pretty drastically for us to alter what we are doing,” he says. “I can only handle so much corn effectively.”

Up until the early 1990s, Klever had some farms in continuous corn for more than 20 years. “We had a lot of livestock then so we raised mostly corn,” he says.

Klever farms with his son Ryan primarily in Stephenson County, with some acres in Jo Daviess and Winnebago counties.