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Southern Wisconsin farmer hopes rainy forecast is correct

The lack of rain has farmers worried about how long their crops can hang in there. 

Doug Rebout, his brothers, and mother partner to raise 4,000 acres of corn and soybeans, and do some custom dairy heifer raising for a neighboring farm.  Rebout tells Brownfield as of Thursday, their Janesville, Wisconsin area farm had not had rain since before Memorial Day and he’s amazed the corn looks as good as it does. “If you go down about four to five inches in many areas, you can start seeing a little bit of moisture there, so that’s one thing that’s saving the corn right now is those root systems are going down and finding that moisture.”

Rebout says subsoil moisture is all they’ve got since everything is dry on top, and he credits crop residue with helping hold some of that valuable moisture. “The strip-till, just making that one little strip and leaving the rest of the soil untouched, you still have last year’s crop sitting on top and that is protecting that soil.”

Like other farmers throughout the Midwest, Rebout is hoping the forecasted rains don’t pass over his farm without leaving some valuable rain behind.  He says it would be a shame to finally have good commodity prices this year, but no crop to sell.

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