LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Torrential spring rains that delayed planting didn't put a dent in Kentucky's corn crop, which looks good despite the late start.
Kentucky growers waited out the monsoon-style spring to plant the state's largest corn crop since 2007 and their patience appears to be paying off. A crop-reporting service said Monday that 80 percent of the statewide corn crop was in good or excellent condition.
"To this point, the late-planting season has not hurt us because we have continued to receive timely rains," said Kenny Perry, the agricultural extension agent in Graves County in far western Kentucky.
Corn crop prospects have turned around since spring rains swamped fields, putting planting several weeks behind schedule.
In Livingston County, which was hard hit by flooding, farmer Dale Calender wasn't sure he'd have much of a corn crop this year. He ended up planting about 1,500 acres, about half the acreage he planned to put in corn.
Now his crop looks good. He's not expecting a bumper crop, but he's hoping for average yields despite the springtime delays.
"I was scared it would turn off hot and dry and it wouldn't rain again all summer," he said by phone. "But the rains keep coming."
Calender, who farms with his son Tony, said their soybean crop of about 4,000 acres also looks good.
Crops look good across the western Kentucky county, though some later-planted corn is just now pollinating, a key stage that's coinciding with the blast of scorching temperatures, said Livingston County agricultural extension agent Darrell Jones.
"We've had a lot of timely rains since the crop was put in the ground," he said. "That's really helped this crop."
Some farmers were still planting soybeans as of last week, Jones said. And some riverbottom land in the county never got planted this year because of the wet weather.
The latest blast of extremely hot weather could pose a threat to corn fields reaching key development stages.
Temperatures in the 90s will be common across Kentucky this week, and when combined with stifling humidity, heat index readings will surge past 100 degrees, according to the National Weather Service.
Corn crop development is well off last year's pace, according to a report Monday from the National Agricultural Statistics Service's Kentucky field office. But only 2 percent of the crop was rated poor or very poor and 18 percent was fair.
In a late June report, the agency said Kentucky farmers had planted an estimated 1.44 million acres of corn, up 100,000 acres from last year and the state's largest corn acreage since 2007.
Across the country, higher corn prices led U.S. farmers to plant the second biggest corn crop this year since World War II. The surprisingly big crop helped offset growing demand from the U.S. ethanol industry and overseas livestock producers.
Kentucky farmers also planted the state's largest soybean crop since 1984, the report said. Soybeans were planted in an estimated 1.52 million acres, up 120,000 acres from 2010, it said. Some farmers switched from corn to soybeans after the steady spring rains.
The weekly crop report on Monday rated 78 percent of the statewide soybean crop in good or excellent condition.
Nationwide, farmers planted 75.2 million acres of soybeans, about 3 percent less than last year.
Kentucky's tobacco was rated 51 percent good, 26 percent fair, 18 percent excellent and 5 percent poor or very poor.
Kentucky is the nation's leading burley tobacco producer, though this year's crop is the smallest on record at an estimated 63,000 acres, down 9,000 from last year. Burley is used as an ingredient in many cigarettes.
In Graves County, farmers had a bumper wheat crop and are upbeat about prospects for corn, soybeans and tobacco, Perry said.
"We're going to make a decent corn crop," he said. "I can't say we're going to make 140 bushels per acre right now. I would say we're going to have at least an average corn year, which would be around that mark."
Corn farmers who were frustrated by spring rains now would like to see moisture to get their crops past the intense heat.
"We're probably one timely rain away from making a tremendous crop," Perry said.