Farmers await break in rain

MCCORDSVILLE, Ind. -- Farmers will be keeping a wary eye on Indiana skies this week as they wait for fields to dry out after a soaking string of storms that have delayed planting.\nCorn planting often begins in the third week of April. By this time of the month about seven percent of the crop is typically in the ground, according to data kept by the Indiana Agricultural Statistics Service.\nThis year, only two percent of the crop has been planted.\nRay Helms knows the frustration of waiting.\nFor weeks, Helms' fields in western Hancock County in central Indiana had been too wet to till. Then, more rain fell.\n"I'm feeling nervous," Helms said as he repaired an implement last week. "If we're out another week, we'll really get behind."\nProduction should not suffer as long as seeds are in the ground by May 10, state agricultural statistician Ralph Gann told The Indianapolis Star. But given the heavier-than-usual rain this month, that date could be in jeopardy.\nIt could take up to a week for wet fields to dry enough to allow planting. Additional rainfall will cause more delays and could force farmers into a race to give corn and soybean plants a chance to beat summer heat.\n"You only get one chance to plant," Helms said.\nVirtually no fieldwork has happened from Fort Wayne to Cincinnati, said Stan Hicks, chief operating officer at Harvest Land Cooperative in Richmond. The co-op has 21 stores between the cities selling herbicides, pesticides and fertilizer.\nPurdue University extension corn specialist Bob Nielsen said Indiana farmers are capable of planting nearly all their corn in two weeks, so there's still hope of nearly finishing before May 10.\nLarge operators are most likely to be slowed by the weather. While they have bigger equipment, they also are encumbered by logistics of moving equipment among fields sometimes dozens of miles apart.\nUntil the weather improves, farmers are fixing equipment and puttering with odd jobs.\nDoyne Lowder, who also farms near McCordsville, is fixing up an old sprayer for applying herbicides to fence rows. He found time to joke about meteorologists.\n"Right now they can pick rain and just about be right," he quipped. "It can be dry, and they can predict rain and be wrong"