‘Tis the season when area farmers start deciding how many acres of corn or soybeans to plant for next year.

And it’s a big roll of the dice.

“I’ve heard a lot of farmers say, a lot of mothers of farmers say you’d be just as well off taking that $300,000 operating budget and going to Vegas with it,” said Lynn Hennigan, an agriculture economist who works with county farmers through K-State Research and Extension. “And a few do.”

Some farmers already have placed their bets for 2008, having planted winter wheat for harvesting this coming summer. But for the large majority of farmers, the biggest gambles are yet to come.

Corn and soybeans are the dominant crops planted in Douglas County, and they come with their own factors that can affect the odds.

Corn requires nitrogen fertilizer, a commodity some farmers are struggling to find for less than $500 a ton. That’s up from last season’s $425, a jump of at least 17 percent for what often proves to be a corn farmer’s biggest input expense.

This, after corn had been considered the safe bet going into this fall, as demand for ethanol had driven corn prices up only to stagnate for much of this past year.

That compares with soybeans, which don’t require nitrogen fertilizer and on Tuesday were commanding $9.70 per bushel at area Ottawa Co-op locations. That price is up 55 percent from the $6.25 being paid a year ago.

In all, such higher prices are about the only thing easing the discomfort of paying more for seed, equipment, fuel, fertilizer and seemingly anything else necessary for getting grain from the field to the elevator, said Bill Wood, agriculture extension agent for Douglas County.

“This is nice,” he said. “Farmers will be in a happier mood this fall because we have the higher prices to keep up with the higher input costs.”

Stephen Kalb, who farms thousands of acres between Lawrence and Ottawa along with his father, Kermit, said that while he welcomed the rising prices, they wouldn’t spur many adjustments in operations for next year.

That would be a gamble he’s unwilling to take.

“We had $10 beans before and now we’ve got $3.50 corn, so which market do you want to chase?” Kalb said, cutting the last of his family operation’s 1,600 acres of soybeans. “We’re going to stick with what’s been working for us, and that’s what’s been working for Dad and Grandpa for years. We don’t chase markets because by the time you chase them, the markets will change before we can.”