Neither wind nor rain nor quarter-sized hail could put a dent in this year’s wheat crop.

So says Matthew Vajnar, grain merchandiser for Ottawa Cooperative Association, which has more than a dozen grain elevators in the area.

“We’re fortunate in that our wheat crop is a week to 10 days behind normal,” Vajnar said Friday, hours after severe storms blew through the region. “It’s been so cool and wet, it really hampered its growth. Straight-line winds of 60, 70 miles an hour, during a normal year at this time, I think it might have hurt. But this year it didn’t cause much damage.”

Wheat plants normally “head out” – that’s the term for producing the grain kernels expected to be harvested in June and July – between May 10 and May 25, Vajnar said. But the relatively cool conditions in late March and throughout April stunted the growth of the plants.

When it comes to actual crops, the storms that started Thursday night and lasted into Friday morning dropped a lot of rain in some areas, once again delaying corn planting that some farmers have been trying to start for the past couple of weeks.

“I don’t think there’s any way we’re halfway through with corn planting in Franklin County,” he said.