In this 22 August 2012 photo, drought condition water levels have taken their toll on the wildlife at Anderson Lake State Fish & wildlife Area near Astoria, Illinois. According to the latest drought report released Thursday, 23 August 2012, nearly all of Illinois, Nebraska, Kansas, and Missouri are in extreme or exceptional drought, with Illinois showing the most-dramatic climb in those categories, spiking 17 percentage points in one week, to 96.72 percent, according to the map. Seth Perlman / AP Photo

By Jim Suhr, AP Business Writer
23 August 2012 ST. LOUIS (AP) – While other corn growers already have knocked down their drought-ravaged crops to feed them to livestock, Nebraska farmer Doug Nelson still waits for his maize to mature, well aware it won’t be a banner year. On the day a new report suggested the nation’s worst dry spell in at least a generation is deepening in America’s breadbasket, Nelson said Thursday he expects to harvest anywhere from nothing to 43 bushels per acre on his unirrigated acreage, a far cry from the 120 to 140 bushels he’d typically get. On the irrigated land, he could see 150 to 200 bushels an acre; in previous years, Nelson would see a minimum of 180 bushels. “For the most part, we haven’t seen a hit like this since 1974, as far as my career goes,” said the 61-year-old Nelson, who farms some 5,000 acres near Wayne. “But we’ll have the combines going here in probably another month, and then we’ll know for sure. “You can walk these fields and run into good spots, then walk another part where there’s a different soil and have nothing.” That’s part of the growing frustration with an increasing drought in Nebraska and several other farming states, despite recently cooler temperatures that have, at the very least, given people a break from this summer’s stifling heat. The U.S. Drought Monitor’s weekly map showed that, as of Tuesday, just over two-thirds of Iowa, the nation’s biggest corn producer, was in extreme or exceptional drought — the worst two classifications. That’s up more than 5 percentage points, to 67.5 percent, from the previous week. Nearly all of Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri and Illinois are in extreme or exceptional drought, with Illinois showing the most dramatic climb, spiking 17 percentage points in one week to 96.72 percent, according to the map. In neighboring Indiana, where 5 inches of rain fell in some parts over the past week or so, the area in exceptional or extreme drought fell 9 percentage points, to 37.09 percent.

Drought worsens in Plains, despite cooler temps