August was a very wet month and the rain passing through has left Wisconsin farmers dealing with deteriorating crops.
Tar spot disease is common in Latin America because of the high humidity and rain. Bryce O’Leary grows corn and other crops on his Janesville farm.
"As a farmer, you never want to say no more rain, because rain makes grain," O’Leary said. "We had almost 16 inches of rain between the 16th of August and the 5th of September. Too much rain causes crops to mature quickly meaning they don't weigh as much as they normally should. A lot of this corn this year has died off at about 45 days," he said.
Leary says a normal corn plant takes 60 days to mature.
Too much rain also hurts dairy farms.
"If we can't give the right amount of feed or the right quality of feed to our cows, it's going to decrease the amount of milk we produce," said Rachel O’Leary, an assistant herdsman at the farm. "It's the same as if an athlete doesn't eat a well-balanced meal; they're not going to perform as well."
O'Leary says 60 to 70 percent of his crops have been affected by this wet weather. He says they will know the exact number once harvesting begins in the next couple of weeks.
