ST. LOUIS, Mo. (First Alert 4) - Farmers in Illinois and Missouri are growing increasingly concerned about dry weather impacting pastures and row crops after going nearly a month without significant rainfall.

Daryl Cates, a soybean grower near Columbia, Ill., pointed out a field that had turned prematurely yellow, with many plants producing fewer pods with smaller soybeans inside.

He said he was anticipating around two thirds of his typical yield, acknowledging that even that figure might be optimistic.

“It’s about as dry as I can remember,” he said. “The old timers used to say you get your late rain in August and that’s your moneymaker for the year for beans. But we didn’t get those rains for the third year in a row.”

The US Drought Monitor shows much of Illinois in Missouri entering

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