Area farmers are scrambling to get back on track after summer rains pushed back their planting and harvest schedules. (Pixabay photo)

NEW PHILADELPHIA (WJER) - Local agriculture officials are hoping farmers still have time to grow a suitable yield despite this summer’s heavy rains. 

OSU Extension Office Agriculture and Natural Resources Educator Chris Zoller says the downpours early in the season that continue sweeping through the county, forced farmers to push back their planting schedules.

“We’ve had a lot of rain this year, which has delayed corn and soybean planting and has also delayed the hay harvest so it’s created quite a bit of issues related to that,” he says. 

Zoller says there is still hope that farmers can make up lost ground, and he says they’ve started doing that this week with the short break in the rain we’ve seen.

“Right now, they are taking advantage of some of the dry weather we have at the present time. There’s a lot of hay being harvested. Wheat is being harvested at this point. There might be some replanting of fields that maybe got too much water. They may be replanting some of those,” he says. “There’s a variety of things happening right now but so much of it is out of our control. 

Zoller says it’s hard to tell what kind of impact the rains will have on the harvest results until those actually come in, or even when that harvest will be with farmers replanting fields. 

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