Farmer moods are perking up in North Dakota's Corn Belt, I discovered on a 600-mile loop driving west and south of Fargo this week. In the dark days of April, when flood waters were rising along the Red River and over a thousand roads had washed out, fears of a planting disaster prevailed. Now that the planting scramble is finished, optimists see prospects for an above-average year if yields hold up. Probably not great profits, but possibly good.

"You can't blink at $4 corn," says Wallie Hardie, who farms 4,000 acres of corn and soybeans with son Josh near Fairmount, N.D. Wallie spent much of the winter pruning his 2009 expenses, so that price or better could deliver a tidy profit for him. The Hardies postponed their fertilizer purchases until spring this year, capturing much of the 40 to 50 percent reductions in nitrogen and phosphate prices since November. Generic glyphosate prices also "dropped like a rock," from about $25 per gallon two weeks ago to $19 on his latest bill, says Wallie.

True, farmers with a handful of acres near Carrington, N.D.--close to the western extreme of Corn Belt production--were finishing their 2008 harvest the week of June 15, hoping to settle their crop insurance claims. Those 7-month harvest delays mean perhaps 10 to 15 percent of the 2009 crop won't get planted in that part of North Dakota as a result, says Steve Metzker, a farm management specialist in Carrington. "But that's a lot better than we thought would happen a month ago."

Bart Schott, a corn, soybean and wheat farmer from Kulm still marvels how seed technology has improved income prospects for central North Dakota in the past decade. Despite an abnormally cool, wet season last year, he had a few acres that yielded 180 bu. corn for the first time, although 120 bu. to 125 bu. was more normal. Less than a decade ago when he first began to gravitate away from wheat, his corn yields ran only 70 to 75 bu. Yield improvements in genetically modified plants are leaving wheat in the dust.

Still, North Dakota's fickle weather makes corn production a risky proposition. Keep in mind it snowed in the western part of the state less than two weeks ago. In years like 1993, some farmers reported only 60 days between killing frosts. "Out here, two warm days doesn't make a summer," Hardie jokes, as he explained why he had gone from air conditioning on Monday night to furnace heat on Tuesday morning. The big question will be, will today's three- or four-inch corn be ready to harvest come October?

© Copyright 2009 DTN. All rights reserved.