US Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois recently introduced a bill to help the nation prepare to deal with the effects of future droughts on the Mississippi river.
Recently released numbers by the USDA show that the drought affected crop yields last hear differently across Western Illinois.
Corn yields in McDonough and Mason counties were down thirty bushels per acre from last year. Adams and Pike County were down 60 bushels while Mercer County was actually up twenty.
During last summer’s drought it was difficult for farmers to get accurate data on how dry the soil was. An Iowa State University project that’s been in the works for several years, will change that.
One thing the ongoing drought did not seem to affect was the number of deer in Illinois. The Illinois Department of Natural Resources said hunters killed nearly 181-thousand deer, only one thousand less than one year ago.
