ROSCOE — As floodwaters recede across southern Wisconsin and northern Illinois, Stateline-area farmers are hoping replanted crops will flourish between now and harvest time.

But yield already is predicted to fall short of last year’s records.

“It’s out of the question to catch up to last year’s crop yields,” said Jim Stute, crops and soil agent for the Rock County University of Wisconsin Extension office.

Recent flooding, he added, is swamping the county’s agricultural industry.

“The yield loss is going to be in the millions of dollars. It could be up in the $25 (million) to $50 million area.”

Some 75,000 acres of cropland are damaged in the county, according to initial estimates. A final number will be released by midmonth, when farmers are required to report to the federal Department of Agriculture how many planted acres were destroyed by heavy rains in mid-June.

“It’s going to take until harvest to get a handle on what the full impact of the flooding will be,” Stute said. “The crops do need to catch up.”

Area farmers were facing an uphill battle even before all the June downpours.

“It’s a complicated situation this year,” Stute said. “We’ve also got several thousand acres that were never planted because it was so wet.”

Farmer Gordy Andrew is among those who had to leave some land unplanted.

“I had a few acres that I never did get on,” said Andrew, who farms some 3,500 acres between Brodhead and Evansville with his brother George.

Heavy rain last summer and heavy snowfall last winter left some land so saturated that it never dried out enough to plant.

“It all started in August, when we had 20-some inches and built up our moisture reserve,” Andrew said.

Some cannot remember a year as soggy as this one.

“I’ve farmed since the ’70s, and I’ve never seen it this wet,” said Ken Luety, who farms near Clinton. “I think in general, the crops look the worst they have in a long time, in terms of color.

“We have areas of fields that we never did plant, and we had fields drown out.”

Though fields are starting to dry out, the accepted cut-off date for planting corn — the Fourth of July — has come and gone. Stute said some of the hardest-hit areas are between Janesville and Evansville.

“That’ll never get planted,” he said. “It’s way too late for corn and soybeans … for corn, the Fourth of July is pretty much the cut-off date.”

Kathy Tober, president of the Walworth County Farm Bureau, said the situation is the same in her area. Even where water has receded, Tober said, it’s too late to plant a new crop.

“You can’t get a crop now; it’s too short of a growing season ... that’s the sad part,” she said. “With the hard rain, there’s a hard crust developed on some of the crop fields. Sometimes a little bit of rain is good, because it does soften it up a little bit.”

Rock County farmers who were able to replant now are counting on good weather this month and next to boost yields.

“Everybody has a percentage of crops that have been flooded out,” said Brian Gunnink, who farms in Bradford Township east of Janesville and replanted in June. “We’ve probably lost about 4 to 5 percent of our beans — the water stood there long enough that it drowned them.”

Some agriculture officials say that neighboring counties were hit even harder than Rock.

“There’s no doubt that we’ll have reduced yields, but we’re not nearly as bad as they are in Jefferson County,” said Judy Schambow, Rock County Farm Services Agency director. “They have people where their whole farms are still under water.”

One farmer who still had fields under water in recent days is Gary Shedd, who farms 1,600 acres in Brodhead, Wis., and along the Rock River in the Roscoe, Ill., area. Shedd estimates that he’ll lose about $70,000 on his drowned-out 70 acres of corn.

“I have 70 acres of a 100-acre field under water,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll be able to replant.”

For those who have replanted, however, things finally are starting to look up.

“It’s starting to get a little bit greener here, and hopefully these roots will get down and get some nutrients,” said Mark Gunn, of O’Leary Gunn Farms west of Janesville.

Gunn said his sweet-corn crop is doing well, and should be ready within a few weeks.

“The sweet corn looks excellent,” he said.

Andrew agrees that a comeback is not impossible.

“Plants are resilient individuals,” the Evansville farmer said.

As the potential for a bumper crop evaporates, along with water in the fields, farmers are keeping a watchful eye on high corn prices, which could help make up for some of the revenue lost from unplanted or flooded fields.

“The prices have rallied to levels that we’ve never seen before,” said Luety, of Clinton. “It will offset (the flooding.) But we all have a lot more risk. We’ve set all-time highs daily, it seems like, in corn and soybeans.”

And input costs also are on the rise. Luety said he’s already purchased fertilizer for next year to lock in a lower price, something he’s never done before.

Roger Christen, manager of the Winnebago County Farm Bureau in northern Illinois, said the high prices will help farmers weather the flood-related storm.

“It if it weren’t for the price being what it is, it’d be a lot worse,” Christen said.

Back in their fields, farmers know exactly what they need to rescue a decent yield and reap the rewards of high prices.

“This year we have good prices, but we hope for a good yield to sell at those prices,” Andrew said.

He said a perfect finish to this growing season would be “regular light showers — not deluges, like we’ve been used to.”

Stute agrees.

“An inch of rain a week, daytime highs at 85, low humidity and a nighttime temperature of 70. The plants would really like that,” he said.

Whether that occurs is anyone’s guess, of course.

“It’s kind of rolling the dice — if we can get 8 inches of water in August and July,” the remaining and replanted crops will do well, Shedd said. “(But) some Julys we have no rain. We usually have scattered showers from here on out.”

One thing swamped farmers aren’t short on at this point is optimism.

“There’s still hope, still plenty of hope,” Andrew said. “I think with farmers, in general, hope pretty much springs eternal.”