The extreme heat is stifling farmers' crops

"It hot and dry," said Winnebago County Farm Bureau manager Roger Christin.  "Just a combination of the two things we do not need this time of year."

Beating the heat has become the number one priority for local livestock farmers.

"It's really hot for the people and the cows," said dairy farmer Brent Pollard.  "It would be nice if it would cool off."

The last three days have been more than 10 degrees above normal.  That's why Pollard is keeping his cows in the shade, under fans and continually sprayed with misters.

"Putting water on the cows' back and having that water evaporate off and taking the heat with is critical when were in 90-degree temperatures," said Pollard.

But Pollard's cattle are eating, which is a sign they're not over-heating, which means there still producing milk and still making money for pollard.

"Anytime, anything happens that these cows aren't producing milk, it hurts our bottom line," said Pollard.

Making the problem worse for farmers is that it's only rained about a half inch so far in the month of June, and the slight drought conditions are also putting this year's crop in jeopardy.

"It basically puts them in more of a defensive mode," said Christin.  "Because they're not getting enough moisture to actually grow.""

To protect themselves the leaves curl up and the growth gets stunted.  Troubling signs Christin says could really hurt this year's harvest.

"If there's not enough moisture, the pollination is really critical, because if we don't get a good pollination of the corn, there will be nothing to harvest this fall," said Christin.

That's why farmers are hoping temperatures will cool off and the rain will pick up in the next few weeks.

"We need some rain, that's the best thing I can say, is give us some rain," said Christin.

Most of the corn in the Stateline is field corn which is used for ethanol and goes into many of our food products.  Christin says the lack of rain now could really drive up prices later this year.