Another 3,659 acres were planted over the past weekend, said David Berg, vice president for agriculture.

"So far, we identify about 43,000 acres of 'shift' acres that have been planted, which we consider quite successful," Berg said Monday. "We had 55,000 acres that didn't get planted because they were too wet. Being able to replace some of those is good, because it keeps our factories running at near-optimum capacity."

The co-op's board of directors on May 23 decided to allow shareholders in areas that were drier, where planting was possible, to plant extra acres beyond their stock acres to help offset unplantable acres in wet areas.

The co-op initially estimated that 25,000 acres might be replaced with the acre shift program.

A total of 53,000 acres were volunteered for planting under the program, but Crystal officials initially pro-rated the plantings so farmers would only replace 26,000.

"Then, as it rained the subsequent weekend, we decided to get more 'shift' acres to replace acres that were then not likely to get planted," Berg said.

By that time, however, some farmers had planted other crops on their volunteered "shift" acres. Ultimately, the number of unplantable acres was estimated at 55,032 acres, and the number of shift acres planted was 42,755. So, 485,701 acres out of 498,500 stock acres have been planted -- that's 97.4 percent.

Berg said anything planted after May 16 loses optimum yield potential, assuming normal weather. About 300,000 acres had been planted by the May 16 target date, after which yield potential drops off, assuming normal growing conditions. "We think that those stand a good chance to be up to our recent historical standards, which are quite high, in the range of 20 tons per acre," Berg said.

While yield potential for the rest is theoretically reduced, the actual yield will depend on growing conditions, including soil moisture.

"We've got plenty of moisture," Berg said. "The hope is we don't have excess moisture."

There is some Aphanomyces root rot in the soil, a disease that proliferates in warm, moist conditions. Almost no Crystal acres have had to be replanted due to wet conditions or other problems.