That's the way Illinois soil looks and why it's such great farmland. Illinois was prairie land for millennia and has a high level of organic matter in the soil due to the prairie grasses and to the animals that ate the grass. That's the color I thought all soil was until I moved to Utah and learned that soil can also be yellow.

That "dark brown stuff" is probably crop residue from last years growing season. Many farmers use the "No Till" method of farming. They plant, fertilize in one operation right over the stuff left from last years harvest.

Since the price of corn is at record highs, many farmers are planting corn on fields that were corn last year. Normally corn and soy beans would be rotated to use less chemical fertilizers. Soy needs much less than corn as it fixes some N into the soil naturally.

Later on the farmer will spray the fields with more chemicals to control weeds and insects using specially made field sprayers.

The soil under that dark brown stuff is know as "black gold". It's the envy of the agricultural world.

That work of art of corn plants was probably produced with the aid of $500.000 worth of GPS - computer driven farm equipment that planted and fertilized the field in different proportions based on the data from last years harvest. Unlike your lawn where you spread the same amount of fertilizer all over the lawn...farmers use varied amount of input chemicals in their fields. For example the middle of a field many need 10% less fertilizer than the sides to get the same production.

Great info iowa!

Thanks! :)