Wet summer leaves Illinois farmers under water

WILL COUNTY, Ill. (WLS) -- Many Illinois farmers are scrambling to salvage what's left of their crops after their fields flooded in the southwest suburbs.

When the planting season starts, the farmer may not know what Mother Nature will bring. But he knows he must buy seed.

ABC7's Paul Meincke asks: "And your seed bill is $125,000 a year?"

"Yeah, yippee ki yay, huh?" said Dave Kestel, a fourth-generation Will County farmer with 1,100 acres of corn and beans. He's been through droughts and excessive rain. This year, the wet spring delayed planting, and the wetter June has drowned some low-lying acres.

Meincke asks: "Some of the spots like this one, you just gotta write it off?"

"Yeah that's a zero. That's a kick in the head because I've already spent money to put that out there, and now, you're getting nothing," Kestel said.

Kestel figures he's lost more than 30 acres of soybeans and is not sure yet about corn. His situation is fairly typical; low-lying farmland throughout central and northern Illinois has become mud fields. They're too tough to replant, and now, it's too late. The rainwater dilutes the nitrogen, and the corn looks lame.

"Nitrogen is to corn like protein is to you and I. You've got to have it to produce anything," Kestel said.

So production will be off this year. Will County figures to lose on the order of 13,000 acres of corn and beans combined.

"We're still going to need consistent rains throughout the rest of this July and August, we just don't need that three to four inches at one time. That's what hurts us," said Mark Schneidewind, Will County Farm Bureau.

While individual farmers are taking a hit, the down yield is not expected to immediately translate to higher prices at grocery stores.