Slow corn seeding pushes price and food concerns

Soaring soy prices and high input costs to produce corn led farmers to slash corn area and boost soy seedings this year.

Now producers are having trouble planting corn as excessive rainfall threatens to cut production. The crop must be planted by roughly mid-May to generate maximum or optimum yields.

Farmers are not at the point where they should plant in soil that is not dry enough, as that could cause even more yield loss than seeding a few days late, said Emerson Nafziger, extension agronomist at the University of Illinois.

But if the delays persist, farmers may be forced to plant in less than ideal conditions as the potential for crop damage increases daily in late May and early June.

"What would be considered foolish today may not be considered foolish in two weeks," Nafziger said. "Yield loss is going to start to accelerate."

(Reporting by Sam Nelson; additional reporting by Bob Burgdorfer, Christine Stebbins and Mark Weinraub; editing by Jim Marshall)