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Crop Production Decrease Attributed to Weather
The Illinois Department of Agriculture says heavy spring rains cut Illinois' corn production by 7 percent in 2008.

The department says the state harvested 2.13 billion bushels of corn, down from 2.28 billion bushels in 2007. Mark Schleusener, from the USDA Agricultural Statistics service says a wet spring may have delayed planting.

"Harvest was delayed two or three weeks compared to normal because of all the rain," Schleusener said. "That rain had some spotted flooding. Many, many fields had a small area that was too wet to harvest. But in some areas, flooding was severe. Some farms lost their entire crop."

Schleusener says the wet weather may have put the growing season behind schedule and some farmers had to leave corn in the fields late last year when snow started falling.

Illinois farmers were able to harvest over 427 million bushels of soybeans which turned out to be 19 percent more than in 2007.

Illinois is the country's number two corn and soybean producing state behind only Iowa for both crops.
01 16 09 by Newsroom
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