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Illinois farmer is assessing damage to crops

A central Illinois farmer says he’s still assessing damage to his corn and soybean crops after receiving nearly 10 inches of rain.

But Matt Bennett of Windsor, Illinois says his corn fields look at lot better right now than he thought they would.

“The corn’s yellow, but our stand didn’t get thinned out,” Bennett says. “The most pressing question for most of us in this part of the world is how much nitrogen are we going to have to add. We’re definitely going to be looking at that very closely, because with that much rain for that length of time, there’s no doubt that we had to have lost some nitrogen.”

Bennett says it may be another week before farmers in that area get back in the fields.

“I would say by the middle of next week there will be a lot of folks that are out there trying to patch some stuff up and figuring out what they’re going to do as far as spotting in or tearing up corn.”

Bennett says he had all of his corn and most of his soybeans planted before the rain systems moved in.

AUDIO: Matt Bennett