By MIKE CORN

mcorn@dailynews.net

RUSSELL SPRINGS -- Kevin Stoppel has been scrambling throughout Logan County -- if you can call driving down the road at about 22 mph scrambling -- getting his fields ready for drilling wheat.

If the fields dry out after Monday's heavy rains in the area, Stoppel will be in the field as soon as possible, planting the 2010 wheat crop. He will have about 1,500 acres to plant.

Stoppel was traveling from field to field last week, roading his John Deere tractor from one field to another.

Along the way, he talked of the soil conditions and the cool, wet weather of August, and the need for more time for maturing fall crops.

Agronomist Brian Olson agrees that corn, milo, sunflowers and soybeans need additional growing time.

In other words, the hope is that a frost stays away.

"We're sure going to need the month of September," Stoppel said. "We're sure not going to need a freeze."

While Stoppel only grows wheat on his Logan County operation, based in Winona, after planting, he heads to far northeast Colorado -- a stone's throw from the Nebraska panhandle -- where his father farms.

There, where they have irrigation, they grow millet, corn, sunflowers and soybeans in the Julesberg area.

As he was driving his tractor to the west, he talked of how costs have exploded.

His tractor, he said, likely would cost about $300,000 today.

"I think this is a 2004," he said of the tractor. "Stuff has gotten so expensive today."

A box of parts, he said, can easily top $1,000.

"You know that from buying cars," he said.

And grain prices have fallen.

"The only thing you can do is raise more grain," he said. "And then the price goes down. Then we're screwed."

Despite the serious nature of the industry, Stoppel made the observation while good-naturedly, laughing.

Farmers are in relatively good humor this year, in spite of the price drop, because there has been adequate rainfall for growing crops.

"Right now, the moisture is nice," he said at the time, "and the temperature is nice."

It's not often, he said, that August has been so cool. In the Colby area, in fact, the average high in August was 86 degrees. Only twice did temperatures climb above 100 degrees, with the low dropping all the way to 66.

Hays was warmer, with temperatures hitting 100 at least three times.

But with cool nights, grain sorghum has been slow to mature.

"The milo is going to need the month of September," he said of crops in the Logan County area.

Olson agrees a few more weeks of frost-free temperatures will be needed for the crops to develop.

Already, he said, some of the early maturing corn crops are at their peak.

Some farmers likely will start cutting some high-moisture corn in the coming days.

"We'd prefer not to have a freeze for three to four weeks," Olson said.

In Hays, the first frost of the fall generally falls Oct. 14. That's the average, though, and the first frost has come as early as Sept. 17 in 1901 and 1903. The latest was Nov. 10, 1998.

At Colby, the first frost of the fall, on average, comes Oct. 2. If cold weather can be staved off, Olson said, the results should be good, with above-average crops.

"They have some good looking summer crops," he said.