Randy DeBaillie pointed to the power meter on his snow-covered farm: Even on a foggy, monochromatic day, with the sun barely piercing the clouds, the flat black panels planted nearby in two long rows were generating electricity.

"There's enough energy produced to run the whole complex," said DeBaillie, 50, who farms 6,500 acres with his brother and cousin. They typically grow corn and soybeans each spring, but this year they want to put more solar panels on 15 acres -- and sell the energy.

The earnings, he said, would be about three times what an average harvest would yield there.

Across the flatlands of Illinois, a new 'crop' is rising among the traditional waves of grain as farmers increasingly make the same calculation as DeBaillie. Hundreds have applied to host acres of solar panels on their property, a move encouraged by a state law requiring that renewable resources provide 25 percent of Illinois power by 2025. [...]

In Carlyle, Ill., about an hour east of St. Louis, retired farmer Kevin Krebs hopes to add to the small plot of panels he installed in 2018 for personal use. Having more solar panels could benefit his retirement as well as the planet.

"You don't have to burn no coal. You don't have to burn no oil. You don't have to burn no gas," said Krebs, 60. "You get it from the sun and let it do its thing."