"Rain, rain. Go away. Come again some other day." It’s not a nursery rhyme altogether popular in Karnes County, but what local farmers were hoping would be a record year is turning to a soggy mush out in the fields.

Stunning amounts of precipitation are to blame as standing crops are denied necessary oxygen and nitrogen. Some fields are almost entirely ruined.

Local cotton, grain sorghum, and corn crops will be harvested soon, but yields are expected to be flat. Standing water has stunted growth in some fields and in others has pummeled the crops’ harvestable parts beyond use.

Karnes County Agriculture Extension Agent Dennis Hale said at this point, more rain is not necessarily better.

"The year started off with so much promise. We had good planting moisture. Everything was emerging. The farmers were just really optimistic. The specialists were down from (Texas A&M University) and they were saying the crops look wonderful. From that point on, things changed for the negative."

June was bad, but tolerable. July washed everything out.

"As we’re getting nearer to harvest and these crops are starting to dry down, a lot of extra water is not good for them."

Grain sorghum is the first of the three crops local farmers will attempt to harvest. Some farmers have started already, but even now, the harvest is three weeks behind schedule. Before recently, equipment just couldn’t get into the muddy fields.

Hopes aren’t too high for grain sorghum, though.

"A lot of producers went from looking at harvesting 4,000 pounds or even 4,500 pounds (of grain sorghum per acre) down to 1,500 pounds. The quality of the crop is poor on top of that," Hale said.

Corn also will be harvested soon and yields are expected to be down with that crop, as well. Though corn ears are naturally waterproof, they have taken some hits from the persistent downpours.

Cotton has been affected severely. Excess water has weighed down cotton bolls and many have fallen right off the plant. Sometimes as much as half the bolls will be lost off a given crop, according to Hale.

Of those that remain, water can ruin cotton fiber quality, so cotton that’s actually harvested isn’t expected to be worth as much.

The water also has robbed all three plants of oxygen and nitrogen. Farmers typically fertilize before planting, but water flows have washed the nitrogen in that fertilizer away from roots throughout the season.

Seeing as there haven’t been any prolonged drying periods, either, standing water also has choked crops.

"They need oxygen. When you get too much water, the water fills all the air spaces up in the soil. Those roots can’t get oxygen," Hale explained.

Temperatures so far haven’t risen to their normal levels yet, either, despite the area having been without substantial rain for more than a week.

"This is just record-breaking rain and cool. We’ve been without rain for about a week, yet the temperatures have not recovered to normals," National Weather Service Meteorologist Larry Eblen said. "They ought to be in the upper 90s to near 100 … which is telling us that we’re not evaporating quite as severely."

Ranchers in the area have had an easier time than farmers, despite running across a few problems.

"I’ve had coastal for 20 years and I have never seen a disease on it. Right now, I have probably 45 acres in five-, six-, eight-, or 10-acre patches that are dead. It’s a fungus," Kenedy-area rancher John Henshall said.

Henshall operates a ranch just south of Kenedy where he’s reporting, despite the fungus, a great year for his herd.

"My coastal overall is the best I’ve ever had in the 20 years I’ve been here. My cows are just having a ball," he said.

Rainfall reports on the whole vary depending on who’s collecting the data, but preliminary findings suggest this year could end up being the wettest ever for South Texas.

"We have had probably more rain in the first seven months of this year than any other year except for maybe one or two. I think we’re in the third wettest (year) at this point in time," Eblen said.

As for Karnes County, the local Farm Service Agency has recorded data since 2005 and shows rainfall is up substantially in the area since then. For the entire year of 2005, Karnes County received 25.06 inches of rain. That number moved to 28.09 inches total for the year of 2006.

This year is far from over and already Karnes County is at 35.46 inches of total rainfall.

As for whether or not the downpours will continue, Eblen stopped short of making any prophetic predictions, but he did note things have quieted down for a short time.

"We’re in a very touchy situation. I’ve got to believe (the persistent rainfall) can’t keep happening," he said. "What we had was an upper-level, low-pressure area that was not really very strong, but it sort of worked its way out of the main stream of storm systems. It wandered down into Texas until it found some balance and it just kind of wobbled around the state for two months. And when it moved out, another moved in."

For now, a ridge of high-pressure has settled over South Texas and will keep rain at bay for a short while.