SPENCER, Iowa (KTIV) -
Every day the drought deepens, crops come one step closer to the brink. Soon, some farmers say, there won't be anything left to save.
It's a tale of two ears. In one of his fields, Kent Kilpatrick has two ears of corn. One was able to use the rain to grow, the other's was stunted. If the weather trend continues for much longer, more of the corn will shrivel up.
"We keep saying we've got another week, but that week is shortly approaching," said Kilpatrick.
Early in the season, he expected a bumper crop.
"Everything was peaches and cream," said Kilpatrick.
Now, that's no longer the case. Little rain in the last month means his crops are on the edge.
"Hopefully, we can weather this through, but time will tell," said Kilpatrick.
He goes deep into his field to find corn that's close to being ready to use. Kilpatrick says effective irrigation here just can't happen.
"You can't just go out and throw a garden hose on it. That's not the answer," said Kilpatrick.
About 25 percent of these crops aren't getting the moisture they need from the ground up, and that number could only grow in the next week, if there's no rain.
Though the rains in Clay County in May and June kept the crops alive, now the growth is stopping. It's getting burned from the ground up. The corn that's ready for harvest is about 4 inches shorter than usual. On trips through other parts of Northwest Iowa, Kilpatrick has seen it looking much worse.
"Even all the rain in the world isn't going to save that corn," said Kilpatrick.
"If we get some rain, we should have an average crop moving forward, but it's absolutely anybody's guess about how we'll end up going forward," said Jarrett Smith, a seeds man for Channel.
Still, even with crop insurance, this dose of dry weather is taking its toll.
"You can't get the crops back," said Kilpatrick.
Other farmers will face a similar task, and Kilpatrick says there's only one solution at this time.
"Just have to kind of tighten our belt, if we haven't already. I don't know. I don't have a magic bullet, I wish I did, I wish someone did," said Kilpatrick.
Interestingly enough, Kilpatrick's sweet corn is doing better than his field corn. That sweet corn isn't for sale, though.
