RALPH LEARY, WHO LIves south of Lawrence, sits on his truckload of corn in September. Because of wet conditions from last year, farmers are optimistic about the crop outlook for 2005.

Todd Howard is optimistic about his crops this season, but he knows that asking for another year like 2004 would be pushing it.

“Across the board, I’d say it was pretty close (to the best I’ve ever seen),” said Howard, a partner at the May-Way Farms in Baldwin. “We had good rain and cooler temperatures in the summer. Back to back, it would be a lot to ask for.”

It is a sentiment shared by many farmers in northeast Kansas, where last year’s wet weather conditions produced exceptional corn and soybean crop outputs. Well-timed rains helped fill out last season’s crops and set the stage for a good season this year.

“A lot of it (the rain) came in the summer, when the crops can really use it,” said Steve Beguelin, a northeast Kansas agriculture consultant with the Crop Quest.

But, just how last year’s conditions will impact this year’s crop is another matter.

Beguelin said wet conditions last summer and this winter could have both positive and negative implications for local farmers.

For example, the moist conditions were good for getting wheat planted in the fall, but some oversaturated wheat fields will have dead patches that have been drowned out.

The good news for some corn crops, he said, is that soil conditions in the area are as good as they’ve been in four or five years. That moisture will go a long way in ensuring that short-season corn crops will have a fruitful year.

But medium- and long-season corn varieties, which need another six to eight weeks before they are ready to harvest, won’t necessarily benefit from the good soil.

“The moisture we’ve got now is going to be long gone before that corn needs it in the end,” Beguelin said.

Still, Beguelin said he’s seen a number of farmers move toward medium-season corns, which have higher yield potentials than short-season corns because of the good soil conditions. Furthermore, most farmers have diversified their corn plantings, mixing short-, medium- and long-season varieties.

Regardless of the soil conditions, the recent wet weather has soybean and corn farmers like Howard a bit concerned about getting their crops in the ground. Ideal planting conditions for the crops, which go into the ground in April, are drier.

And, drier is about the only direction soil conditions can go, Beguelin said.

“The ponds are all full, the lakes are getting full, the creeks are all runnin’, the springs are running out the sides of the hills,” he said. “There’s just really virtually no more room to hold moisture.”