WEATHER HAMPERS FARMERS

This is a season of change for farmers.

"Along about March, farmers start to tinker with farm machinery, preparing it for the planting season to come," said Terry Birk of the Agriculture Stabilization and Conservation Service office at Jackson. "Wet weather conditions are keeping farmers out of the fields, but a lot of preventative maintenance work is being done on equipment."

Spring planting is just around the agricultural corner.

"This time a year ago we had some corn in the ground," said Birk. "Weather permitting, a few farmers start planting in mid-to-late March. Usually by mid-April the majority of corn is planted in Cape Girardeau County."

Rain, snow and mud made field work difficult during the first two months of the year, noted Birk.

Area farmers are also keeping watch on winter wheat.

"Winter wheat does better when the ground is not real wet," said Birk. "But, at this time, most of the wheat has been fertilized and is looking pretty good."

The winter wheat is usually harvested in June. A total of about 20,500 acres of winter wheat was planted in Cape Girardeau County in October and November of last year.

Stoddard County is one of the large wheat-producing counties in the area, with about 80,000 acres a year. Stoddard ranks third in wheat-producing counties in the state.

Scott County, which ranks seventh in wheat production in the state, has about 54,000 acres planted.

Corn will be planted throughout the area next month.

"We'll be planting about 35,000 acres in Cape County," said Birk. "Farmers are hoping for another good year."

Birk said some corn fields yielded as high as 240 bushels an acre last fall.

"Lots of fields in the county produced 120 to 130 bushels of corn an acre," said Birk. "The fields producing 240 bushels an acre were in the southern part of the county from irrigated fields."

Statewide a year ago, Missouri produced a record high 324 million bushels, up 52 percent from 1991 production totals. The average yield statewide was 135 bushels an acre, 19 bushels above the previous state record established in 1986.

Soybean yields in the southeast area and state were also good.

"We had reports of 60 bushels an acre on down in Southeast Missouri," said Birk. "We had many reports of 30 to 35 bushels an acre and those are good yields.

Farmers plant about 40,000 acres of soybeans in Cape Girardeau County.

"We have plenty of time before soybean planting," said Birk. "Farmers usually plant early beans in early through late May."

Statewide, soybeans averaged a record high 38 bushels an acre, 3.5 bushels above the previous record set in 1985. Nationally, Missouri ranks fifth in the nation in both acres harvested and total production of soybeans.

Mississippi County is one of the larger soybean-producing counties in the area, ranking third in the state, a notch ahead of Stoddard County, which ranks fourth in state soybean production. Both counties report planting more than 150,000 acres of soybeans a year.

With the coming of spring planting, Birk reminds farmers that planting time and harvesting time are the two highest farm-accident periods.

"Common types of farm accidents involve farm equipment on roadways, extra riders on tractors, tractor overturns, and tractor run-overs," Birk said.