Pat Ross is no different than anyone else – he’s not much for heat, especially when it comes with a healthy dose of humidity. So it’s no wonder that he and his business partners bagged their sweet corn operation for the season Monday evening.

“It’s hot and miserable, and people don’t want to get out,” Ross said.

But now that Nunemaker-Ross Farms is done with its 35 acres of sweet corn, the heat gets turned up even more on a much larger slice of the ag operation: 1,600 acres of field corn running throughout the Kansas River bottoms, stretching west near Topeka and inching east toward Eudora.

“It’s suffering,” Ross said. “Another rain yet this week would sure help finish it off.”

With corn typically covering 25,000 acres in Douglas County – and 3.7 million acres this year in the state – the stakes are high for farmers and those who rely on their incomes.

Farm officials are looking forward to a big year for corn on a statewide basis. Early projections for 400 million bushels this fall are being reviewed, with a new USDA forecast scheduled for Friday.

Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service on Monday rated 13 percent of this year’s crop as excellent, another 48 percent as good and 30 percent as fair. That leaves only 8 percent as poor and 1 percent as very poor.

Sue Schulte, spokeswoman for the Kansas Corn Growers Association, said subsoil moisture had been good and farmers had plenty to look forward to as harvest approaches early next month.

“Statewide, everybody’s pretty excited,” said Schulte, whose organization has 1,200 members. “But we’ll just have to wait and see.”

Complicating things this year was a spring freeze, which halted early corn planting, said Bill Wood, agriculture agent for K-State Research and Extension in Douglas County. Corn that made it into the ground typically is filled out and hearty enough to weather current conditions without much harm, he said.

But later corn that’s still green won’t get much help unless rain comes soon.

“Eventually the plant shuts down,” Wood said. “When that happens, you’re stuck with what you have. If it’s immature, you won’t get much crop.”

It’s no surprise that Ross is rooting for rain. He figures the Nunemaker-Ross corn crop might average 140 bushels an acre, which would be about typical. If things stay dry, the numbers could slip. Throw in some timely moisture – here in the next 10 to 14 days – and things could get better.