MONTEREY, La. &045; The fields lie empty &045; except for the water in them &045; and all Jason Tiffee can do is wait and hope for enough dry weather to allow him to start planting corn.

&uot;We’re just getting the equipment ready to go and looking for clear skies,&uot; Tiffee, who works on his family’s farm near Monterey, said. &uot;The last two years we’ve been planting at this time.&uot;

Specifically, Tiffee and his fellow farmers in Concordia Parish are looking for a week to 10 days of dry weather to get the ground in condition for planting, but that might not happen with more thunderstorms predicted for the area today.

&uot;It’s not going to get dry before (today), and there’s more rain supposed to come our way then,&uot; Ferriday farmer Cecil Brooking said.

Corn fields generally account for about 20,000 of the 177,000 acres of cultivated land in Concordia Parish, behind the approximately 97,000 acres of soybeans and 35,000 acres of cotton grown last year, County Agent Glen Daniels said.

The growing season runs on a specific schedule. If the corn isn’t planted in late March or early April, it won’t have enough time to grow and mature before harvesting time, pushing that further back and bringing more problems.

&uot;The later you plant, the more dependent you are on the weather later in the year,&uot; Brooking said. &uot;You have to have really good growing conditions, and the later it gets, the more exposure you have to disease and insects.&uot;

The bottom line? Some dry weather would be nice, but Brooking said even a full week of dry weather might not even be enough.

&uot;A week wouldn’t do it on the clay ground. On the sandy soil, that would probably do it, but we still wouldn’t be able to plant everywhere,&uot; Brooking said.

Daniels said four or five days of dry weather would probably be enough to allow most farmers to plant.

Thus far, corn is the only crop the weather has delayed. But if it doesn’t dry up soon, more crops will be affected. Soybeans need to be planted soon &045; some varieties should already have been planted &045; and cotton season isn’t far off either.

&uot;I remember once in the early ’90s we didn’t get the cotton planted until early June,&uot; Brooking said. &uot;It stacks the cards against you when you can’t get planted on time.&uot;

If it doesn’t dry up in the next two weeks or so, corn will have to be largely abandoned for this year. Without irrigated fields, there simply won’t be enough time to grow the plants, Tiffee said. If corn can’t be grown this season, most farmers will probably look to other crops for those fields where corn is usually grown.

&uot;Most people go to cotton or grain sorghum if it gets too late for corn,&uot; Tiffee said.

Cotton, sorghum and soybeans can all be planted somewhat later than corn, and soybeans generally return a higher profit.

&uot;If it gets too late for corn, they’ll probably plant cotton or sorghum or soybeans, depending on which product offers the best return,&uot; Daniels said. &uot;The prices are kind of low on corn right now, but soybeans have risen dramatically.&uot;

The danger in not planting corn is a lack of diversity in crops. Most farmers in Concordia grow several crops on their land, in part to hedge their bets. Though soybeans may offer the best return, it’s a good idea to have several crops in case something happens to one.

That’s become even more of a danger with the specter of Asian soybean rust. The disease, only recently found in the United States, can significantly lower crop yields and thus cut into farmers’ bottom lines.