JANESVILLE (WKOW) -- The rain came down overnight and lifted farmers' hopes.
"I was very happy," says Doug Rebout. "I almost wanted to just get out and stand in it."
Rebout took us through his farm in Janesville.
"The ears [of the corn] are small."
He says there's not a lot of consistency—some corn stalks are four feet tall while some are only two feet tall. Either way, it isn't reaching 6 feet like is typical.
"This corn here... This won't yield anything," Rebout says pointing to some shorter stalks.
Much of his corn is suffering, just like most crops in the Midwest.
In Southern Wisconsin, the U.S. Drought Monitor says conditions went from severe to extreme over the past week.
That doesn't factor in the rain we got overnight but experts say...
"In the end, we're still in a drought. It's just temporary relief. It really doesn't change the weather pattern and the effects can be short-lived," says Jim Stute, crops and soils educator in Rock County for the University of Wisconisn –Extension.
Near Evansville, the welcomed rain came with strong winds and damaging hail.
"If the stalk is knocked over with the stress they've already been through, that's going flat on the ground. It's going to be a zero yield."
Rebout is taking it day by day.
He says yesterday...
"We didn't know if we'd have enough feed for cows. It was getting to point where we were starting to wonder about a total loss."
But Thursday, after rain at a critical time when corn is pollinating, he's expecting to get about a 50 percent yield on his 2,600 acres of corn.
That's if we don't have another dry spell.
"If I thought the rain dance would work, I'd be out there doing it every day," Rebout says. "Now that we got some rain, we're hoping and praying it continues at nice steady pace."
