Quad Cities-based Deere & Company is posting record second-quarter earnings. One-point-five-six billion dollars, or $2.61 per share — that’s how much Deere & Company earned in the second quarter ended April 30, and that boosts the full-year earnings forecast to more than three and a third billion bucks.

Worldwide net sales and revenues increased 12 percent, to more than $10 billion for the second quarter. Some are suggesting all of this might be a prediction of U.S. economic recovery.

 Noting that Deere has had eight consecutive quarter of record earnings, chairman and C.E.O. Samuel R. Allen says the results are a reflection of positive conditions in the global farm economy, which he says is continuing to show strength and endurance.

Deere is Iowa’s largest manufacturing employer.

By Phil Roberts, Davenport