By Lynn Vollbrecht and
Sarah Zeller
Staff Writers
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Corn
struggles to grow in a flooded field located along
County Highway O north of Delavan. Area farmers
are hoping June’s record rainfall and subsequent
flooding doesn’t wash away too much of this fall’s
harvest. |
DELAVAN — As floodwaters recede, southern Wisconsin and
northern Illinois 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.”
