We may have only seen an inch of rain in some areas Saturday night in to Sunday, but accumulated rainfall from the month has washed out many fields in the North Iowa area. “This much rain all at once is not a good thing,” says Chuck Grove, a Clear Lake farmer. Grove says 25% of one of his fields has been damaged by the amount of heavy rain we have seen. “We planted crops back in April and in May and at this point if your soybean fields has been damaged you can maybe replant, but it is essentially too late in the year to replant corn,’ he says. Grove says when we see this much rainfall is when water quality starts to become an issue. “The more rain we get, the small amount of nitrogen we put on the field over the year, there becomes more of a possibility for that nitrogen to get deeper down below the soil where the plant can’t get to the nutrients needed to grow.” He says the ideal situation would be for a drier May and June so the roots of the crops have a chance to grow deeper in the soil, but at this point in the growing season there is not much farmers can do to save their damaged crops. “Every year we take a gamble, plant out crops in the ground, do our best and see how mother nature responds.” Grover says farmers do have crop insurance which is determined by the specific fields yield each year. Source - http://kimt.com