With around seven decades of farming experience under his belt, James Howles said he’s worked though his share of dry planting seasons in Crawford County.

Last month, however, “was one of the driest I’ve seen,” the 74-year-old said Friday as he worked on hand-planting potatoes, peas and tomatoes at a portion of his roughly 50-acre farm in Venango Borough. “It’s (still) dry — even my wet ground’s dry,” he added.

The 2.27 inches of April rainfall recorded in the region were more than an inch below the normal amount of precipitation for the month, according to the National Weather Service at Cleveland.

But that doesn’t necessarily spell danger for this year’s crop outlook around the county.

“I don’t think it’s going to hurt us,” Howles said, as long as May rains continue.

Whether it does or not is a big deal. Crawford County’s fields put out nearly $12.5 million in crops in 2002, the last year for which federal statistics are available. The top three crops were forage for animals, corn and soybeans. The local agricultural economy is generated by 1,416 farms and more than 221,000 acres of Crawford County farmland, the 2002 statistics showed.

Down at Cochranton Cooperative Association Farmers Supply, Dick Taylor is among those seeing the bright side this spring. He said last month’s weather actually allowed many area farmers to get a jump on their plantings. “It made them get their crops in earlier, so they can get better crops,” he said.

And better crops, Taylor said, are crucial to the area after a too-wet season affected yields in 2006 and a too-dry season hurt farmers last year.

He said area farmers will need to have a near-perfect growing season this year to make up for those two poor years, which have coupled with increasing prices in fertilizer, seed and other farming products.

“If they don’t have a really good year, we’re going to have a major loss of agriculture (produce) in this area,” he said. “Two years ago, we had too much water. Last year, we didn’t have enough.”

Optimal conditions for the rest of May, Taylor said, would include a brief continuation of the relatively light amounts of rain seen so far this month, followed by a short dry spell and more rain near the end of the month.

Showers may continue around the region through Monday, according to the National Weather Service.

Ryan Smith can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at rsmith@meadvilletribune.com