"The wet ground has not allowed corn to be able to take in nutrients. The corn crop is spotty, and while some areas look great, some are wiped out," said Doug Godke, Tazewell County Farm Bureau manager.

Through Tazewell County is situated smack-dab in the geographical breadbasket of Illinois, Godke might well have been referring to the plight farmers across the state are facing: too much rain and too much cold. In fact, Illinois just came off its wettest June on record, with 9.3 inches averaged statewide.

The deluge also established Illinois as the wettest state in June, according to State Climatologist Jim Angel of the Illinois Water Survey. Combined with average temperatures of around 70.4 degrees – 4.2 below normal – extended rains caused corn condition ratings for Illinois issued by NASS on July 6 to fall to just 49 percent good, along with 3 percent very poor, 9 percent poor and 27 percent fair.

Soybean condition ratings took a hit, as well, with 5 percent rated very poor, 11 percent poor and 32 percent fair.

"It’s really difficult to determine the extent right now, because we don’t know how much damage has been done," Godke said. "We’re hoping that the good corn that’s out there will pick up some of the slack for the other corn that is not going to develop as well."

Cornstalks are yellowing across central Illinois and beyond due to lack of nutrient intake. A casual weekend drive in the countryside of Peoria and Tazewell and Marshall counties reveals hundreds, if not thousands of roadside crop acres that may be considered total washouts. Many farmers are also battling weeds, as wet conditions have kept them from spraying herbicide. Mold and insects could be a big problem as summer progresses.

"Farmers will continue to be farmers and stay optimistic about the growing season. We’ve had years of drought, years of too much rain, and this is just part of farming. Farmers have no control over the weather," Godke told WEEK TV’s Beau Ebenezer last week.

Though days available for fieldwork have been restricted, producers were still able to advance the wheat harvest by 31 percent during the week ending July 6, according to NASS. Its July 10 Illinois crop production report showed harvest of winter wheat is still lagging behind the pace of 2014, down 16 percent from the area harvested by July 10, 2014.

Winter wheat was rated 9 percent very poor, 18 percent poor, 37 percent fair, 33 percent good and 3 percent excellent.

Production of oats is also forecast behind last year’s pace, with 1.5 million bushels to be harvested in 2015, compared to 2 million last year.