Farmer Charles Phelps knows he is lucky. His corn crop was days away from disaster when a pair of isolated rainstorms came breezing through Hastings, Iowa, dumping a bit more than 6 in. of rain on his parched fields. "Now it looks like we might have a crop after all," says Phelps. Some 360 miles to the east, Herb Steffen of Cropsey, Ill., laments that he has not seen enough rain "to settle the dust," much less nurse his corn crop though its critical pollination period. "It's heartbreaking to watch crops die in the field," says Steffen's wife Georgia.
And so...
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