Worsening drought brought Governor Terry Branstad to Mount Pleasant Tuesday.
To get an idea of how it's affecting Iowans.
One corn farmer at the Governor's forum brought in some samples of plants starting to whither in his field.
They're stressed... and so is he.
"It'll get real quiet in Iowa in August if these conditions persist," says Columbus Junction corn farmer Wayne Humphreys.
He's raised crops for 40 years. And lived through drought before..
"It takes a personal toll, there's a tendency to blame yourself."
And its happening again.
"This is what they were seeing from the air."
U.S.D.A. trackers are seeing earless corn plants showing up in Iowa farm fields. Including Humphrey's. He says they're worthless.
"It's not really a corn plant for practical purposes, it is a weed."
A weed that cost money to plant. Humphreys' fields aren't full of these misfit plants. but his fields are showing other troubling signs.
He has tiny ears growing next to healthy ones.
"This is all the pollination that it's going to get, you can see that some kernels have already aborted."
It still has some kernels of corn. But Humphreys says fields with lots of stunted ears lose productivity.
"It's hard to set a combine to harvest both of those ears efficiently, they will not go through the combine well."
Potentially dropping an average yield from over 200 bushels per acre, to 40.
"We know going into a season that it's a gamble for some of us borrow money, some of us don't we hope for the best."
A gamble that may not pay off for farmers in the driest areas.
