More rain is falling on much of Iowa today and it’s dampening hopes for many farmers of getting their planting finished — while some have hardly even started the chore.

Angie Rieck-Hinz, a field agronomist with the Iowa State University Extension office, says farmers in far northern Iowa are getting frustrated with the continued wet weather and the muddy soil.

“That Highway 30 to Highway 20 corridor, I would guess we’re 90-95% done with corn and we have some beans in the ground,” Rieck-Hinz says. “We get north of Highway 3, I would say maybe 30% of the corn is in the ground, and you get north of Highway 18 to the Minnesota border, there’s very little corn in the ground.” Even though we’ve had some dry days, the ground hasn’t been able to dry out in some areas before it rains again, compounding difficulties for farmers.

“Not only are planters not rolling, they’ve not been able to get a whole lot of field work accomplished,” Rieck-Hinz says. “There was a little bit of field work done a little earlier this week but they were extremely selective of where they could be out there because it’s just wet. Obviously, today, tonight and tomorrow isn’t going to help the situation.” While rain is in much of the weekend forecast, predictions call for more rain into next week. Rieck-Hinz had a nugget of advice for farmers, though they’re not going to like it.

“We’re encouraging people to ride this out a little bit longer in terms of making decisions on changing hybrids and things like that,” she says. “At this point in time, there’s not a whole lot anybody can do but just sit tight and hopefully find some other things to take your mind off planting.” Forecasters say the wet weather could last into the middle of next week or longer.

(Pat Powers, KQWC, Webster City contributed to this report)