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Crops suffering Early County farmers, already behind on their planting, have been trying to wait for some moisture before planting the remainder of the cotton and peanuts. "But, they don't have a choice any longer," stated Early County Extension director Brian Cresswell. "May 31 is the deadline for getting crops planted to qualify for insurance." "We're just hoping we'll get whatever rainfall they are predicting for later this week." Predictions of how many acres of peanuts and cotton were going to be planted have gone by the wayside, according to Cresswell. "To be honest, the farmers' plans are changing so fast I don't have a good handle on how many acres we're going to have planted," he stated. "The drought, cost of diesel fuel, chemicals and fertilizers and commodity prices are changing things almost daily." Cresswell noted that due to the drought conditions some farmers will be planting soybeans behind some wheat where they had intended to plant cotton. "Soybeans are bringing $8.00 per bushel and they cost about a third to grow compared to cotton." He also stated that there might be a late splurge of peanuts planted if the $500 per ton price for peanuts that surfaced Tuesday is true. "I just heard that this morning and haven't had time to check it out," he stated. The continued drought conditions has Cresswell worried about some of the county's wells.
"Several or our test wells are below last year's levels already," he stated. "One reason is the number of acres of corn that was planted. We have put a lot of water on the corn crop."
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