ADAIR COUNTY, Iowa — While rain brings plenty of positives and improves drought conditions for Iowa's farmers, it still comes with some negatives.
The machines to plant crops have stayed in their place as recent rain has forced farmers to put a pause on planting.
"It felt like we got off to a really good start," said Brian Jones, a farmer with Jones Harvesting. "We have had just a short rain delay, from when we started planting, then we pushed really hard over another week, before that like 10-day rain period kind of set in."
Jones says this year the farm had its earliest crop planting date yet, but he hasn't been able to plant for over two weeks now.
"We kind of feel now that we are a little behind for where we would normally like to be, which seems unusual considering we started so early," Jones said.
Too much rain makes the ground soggy, which risks machines getting stuck and ruining the ground crops are planted on.
Jones Harvesting is in a unique position because in just one month, they will travel to Oklahoma to help with wheat harvest. This puts a strict timeline on the fourth-generation farmers.
"For us, this planting time is a little more critical because we kind of have this hard cutoff date of when we're physically not going to be here anymore," Jones said.
If the crop isn't planted before they leave for a few months, it will require one of them to travel back and forth, planting the crop by themselves and stretching their resources.
Jones Harvesting's goal is to be done planting the crop by the end of the month, but based on how wet the ground currently sits, they don't know if that will happen.
"It just goes to show how much the weather dictates what goes on on the farm, and we just have to play by Mother Nature's rules," Jones said.
The family-owned farm says they are looking for sunny and dry conditions to continue over a span of a few days to soak up the ground and continue planting their crop.