Corn yields down; farmers hopeful for next year

"Everything kind of got off to a quicker start," and Stateline farmer Ken Greene.

And because of that farmers are racing against the clock to get their fields harvested.  Making the situation worse, the plants are dying sooner because of the stress brought on by the drought this summer.

"The stalk quality is not good, it looks dark and black," said Greene.

But what they're harvesting isn't as much as they wanted.  Corn yields are turning out to be as predicted, down, a lot. 

"We kind of expected that from the summer, that it was going to be a tough year for corn," said Winnebago County Farm Bureau manager Roger Christin.

Farmers in the area are expecting over-all to harvest about 50-percent or less of what they had hoped for in the spring.

The amount of corn they collect depends on two major factors, the type of soil it was planted in and the amount of rain it got.

"You may find that were getting 80-percent, in other places were only getting 20 or 30-percent," said Greene.

Since farmers aren't yielding many crops, the prices for their corn are staying high.

"There's going to be a competition for where this corn is going to go," said Christin.  That's causing live stock prices to creep up as well as the price on your plate.

"So meat prices in the store may creep up, but creep I think is a good word," said Greene.

Now even with this season shaping up to be less than ideal, farmers like Ken Greene are optimistic that next year will be much better.

"The projections are that because prices are high right now that we will plant a lot more acres," said Greene.  "We could have a crop that's probably 40-percent bigger than this year."

Greene says he hopes to be done with harvest by next week, and is already thinking about gearing up for next season with the hope that it can't be as bad as this year.