Is rain too little too late?

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WANE)  The Fort Wayne area got over two inches of rain this week, but farmers say it won't make a difference for some crops.

The heat wave and drought have caused lots of problems, especially for cornfields.

"If you look in this area, there's a lot of uneven fields and things like that that we may not get any crop off of," said certified crop advisor Derek Blair. "The insurance is going to be the saving grace for a lot of guys this year."

This week's rain did help corn that was planted later in the spring, but Blair said there are very few farmers who planted late enough to see the benefits.

Some soybean fields could still be saved, though.

"The fact that there's mud in the field is a good sign. Not to mention this rain came just as the soybeans were flowering," explained Blair. "If we wouldn't have gotten this rain really, we would have started boarding a lot of those pods, a lot of those flowers and not had many pods on the plant. The pods, that's where the beans are in the plant and that's where the yield is," Blair said.

Soybeans could use a couple more rain showers before a projected harvest in mid-September.
"We still need, as we start getting dry here, the middle of next week or end of next week another shower's going to be a great thing and maybe even one more just to get finished out for the year," said Blair.