LATE PLANTING: COOL, WET SPRING KEEPING FARMERS OUT OF FIELD

Terry Birk is keeping watch on the weather report.

"Right now, the outlook is good," said Birk, of the Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Service (ASCS) office at Jackson. The forecast is for sunny conditions with high temperatures expected from 70 to 80 degrees."

That's for today. The extended forecast for Thursday and Friday calls for partly cloudy conditions, while Saturday could bring a chance of showers again.

"We don't need that," said Birk. "If we can get three or four days of sunshine, farmers can return to the fields."

Farmers in Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois haven't been in the fields too much this spring, due to wet weather.

"We're way behind in corn planting," said Birk. "Usually by this time farmers in this area have half of their corn planted. Right now, I doubt if we have two percent of the intended acres planted."

Farmers usually start planting in mid-to-late April, and early March in this area.

Progress on the state's corn crop is the slowest in nine years as farmers wait for muddy fields to dry up, according to the Missouri Agricultural Statistics Office. in its weekly crop report.

And, the spring is being compared to 1984 In Illinois, when only 0.5 percent of Illinois corn was planted by this time.

Just 3 percent of intended corn acreage had been planted in Missouri going into this week.

"That compares with about 28 percent by the same time a year ago," said Birk.

That puts the corn crop nearly three weeks behind normal, from virtually none planted in the central and northern districts to about 17 percent complete in the extreme Southeast Missouri. The pace is the slowest since 1984, also a wet spring.

An average of less than one day was suitable for field work last week in Missouri, ranging from two days or more in the southern counties to virtually none in the northern tier.

About 34 percent of the ground has been worked at least once, but most of that work was done last fall. The five-year average for tillage is 75 percent done by late April. Topsoil moisture in the state was rated 14 percent adequate and 86 percent surplus, before any rain that fell during the weekend.

Most Illinois cornfields also remain unseeded, victims of a cool, wet weather pattern that experts are hoping will snap this week.

"We're not slowed...we're stopped," said one Southern Illinois farmer. "I would have liked to have started planting corn last week. But, I don't think we'll be in the field this week. Everybody is going to be far behind."

Emerson Nafziger of the Cooperative Extension Service said Illinois' 10.6 million acres of corn could be planted in a week if the weather cooperates.

"There's no cause for panic yet," he said. "Sun and warm weather are in the Illinois weather forecast this week "If we can get through the week without substantial precipitation, there's really no problem, but if it extends into the ninth or 10th of May, I think farmers in Illinois are going to be more than worried."