Army cutworms and winterkill are putting a bit of a damper on what could be a very good year for Broadwater County wheat farmers.

But the good news is that growers in both Jefferson and Broadwater counties report that most of their planting is done, say local extension agents. And the plentiful rain of the past few weeks is, so far, proving beneficial.

"Most of the guys on the north end of the county had 60 percent of their fields suffer winterkill," said Broadwater County Extension Agent Virginia Knerr.

Broadwater County's had about a 30 percent increase in wheat acres since the price began to climb to $20 a bushel, she said.

"Quite a few guys took hay acres out to plant wheat when wheat was in the upper teens to $20 per bushel," she said.

Some had Conservation Reserve Program acreages with expiring contracts that weren't renewable, so they too planted wheat.

But while prices had been promising, they've since dropped to about $8 per bushel, she said. And as wheat prices rose, so too did the price for wheat seed.

On the south end of Broadwater County, growers are dealing with army cutworms, Knerr said.

"We were losing winter wheat," she said. "The guys did have to replant."

Knerr is helping monitor for the pale western cutworm, which emerges later in the growing season.

"I found a few, but I haven't found them at high levels that would put them at the threshold to spray," she said.

Knerr is expecting to see higher prices for chemicals and possible shortages for fungicides.

Ag alerts have gone out warning of possible fungicide shortages, which seem to be tied to the boost in wheat acreages nationally.

One product that local growers use to control fusarium head blight in spring wheat is getting increasingly hard to come by, Knerr said.

However, it makes no sense for farmers to stock up on the product until they have a problem, she said.

Rain has been variable in Broadwater County this spring. Over Memorial Day weekend, approximately 2 inches fell in the Toston/Radersburg area, 4 inches nearer the mountains and approximately 6 inches in Deep Creek Canyon.

However a 20-minute downpour this past weekend brought 2 inches of rain and damaging hail to the Toston area in a 20-minute period. Knerr did not know early this week the extent of crop damage from the storm.

In Jefferson County, MSU Extension Agent Andrea Sarchet reported, "There is more wheat that went in this year than last year. But we're not a huge wheat county."

She expects hay acreages to hold fairly steady at 34,000 acres, which were last year's figures.

Although recent rainfall has been good, growers "are still feeling the hurt from drought," she said.

She had just been speaking with a rancher who had 60 percent of his dryland pasture, which had been planted two years ago, die off from fungus.

Once plants are drought stressed, she said, they're much more vulnerable to fungi and diseases.

Planting is 80 to 90 percent completed in the county, she said.

So far, Sarchet said she's received no calls about crop pests, but has gotten a lot of reports about pine beetles in northern Jefferson County.

Reporter Marga Lincoln: 447-4074 or marga.lincoln@helenair.com