Sowing occurs in the first period, which ends in late June. One county reported to the provincial government that by June 27, 14,8270 acres of fields had yet to plant seeds. This stood at 30 percent of the total possible cultivatable land. 82,372 acres of fields that saw maturing corn still needed supplementary planting. And in one village, less than half of the seeds in more than 600 hectares survived.

In the second phase, from July 10 to August 10, rainfall in northern and western regions of Jilin province were only a few millimeters, or 10 percent the yearly average. "This is the crucial reproductive time for the corn and also when the drought was the most serious. A lower pollen survival rate causes corn ears to die," says Yang.

August 17 until now has been the third phase, a the time when corn accumulates dry-matter and conducts photosynthesis. Without water, the granules cannot become plump.

Now, in Yushu as elsewhere in Jilin province, the stalks are bare, the husks sunken, and the kernels withered.

The whole Northeast, stretching from eastern Inner Mongolia to Heilongjiang province, serves as the grain base for greater China, is suffering from the drought. Public data shows that 5.06 million acres of fields have been struck by drought in Liaoning province, accounting for 49 percent of the total provincial arable land. Almost 6.58 million acres of fields or 66.5 percent of all arable land in Jilin province has been hit. Worse still, more than 16.7 million acres fields in Heilongjiang have been affected.

Tarmers are powerless in the face of a natural catastrophe of such size. Zhai Qiang, director of Jilin's flood control and drought relief headquarters, says that the provincial government has invested 326 million yuan for relief and 190 thousand motor-pumped machines were working in anti-drought wells every day. But despite this, but effects have been negligible.

Farmers take out loans to buy seeds and fertilizers with the expectation of selling enough corn to pay back the loans and make a living off of the leftover income. For farmers like Zhang Shucai, the drought breaks this circle. The 1,000 kg of corn that he's harvested can be grinded into cornmeal that can feed his family, but how does he pay back his 5,000 yuan in loans and what will he do next year?