Planting progress surged ahead this past week after being on hold for most of May due to cold wet weather patterns. Western Pennsylvania is at 80 percent complete for corn planting and 75 percent complete for soybean planting.

Spring small grain plantings of barley and oats are complete as well. Although hay harvest is in full progress on many farms, producers are being reminded that now is the time to report planted acres of small grains. The deadline to report small grains is June 16; the deadline to report corn, soybeans, hay, vegetables, fruit and CREP land is July 15.

Aerial photos can be requested via mail, and then they can be completed at home and returned by mail or in person to the office.

Once again this year planting dates are a required entry. It normally takes only about 20 minutes to complete an acreage report for a farm. Some producers feel more comfortable completing their report at the office, while others prefer to do theirs at home.

Either way is acceptable — the important thing is to get it done. Sometimes a future program depends upon previous years reported crop acres. This is almost a guaranteed certainty with the new farm programs due to be enacted later this year. The new Farm Bill was recently passed and there will be some new programs.

No one can predict what might be coming down the road in the way of farm programs, but it will probably be similar to the old programs. We have some producers who file an acreage report each year just so documentation is on file of the crops produced for the IRS.

Producers who are participating in current FSA programs are required to report all crop and land uses on cropland acres on their farm. Most participating producers have a system developed that permits timely accurate reports in very few minutes.

For those producers who are unsure of the acres in each field, FSA measurement service is available. Acres can be measured on the farm using a mobile GPS unit or from the office using 2006 satellite digital imagery.

Contact the office for farm specific rates. If measurement service has been requested prior to the acreage reporting deadline, the measured acreage is considered timely filed even if the actual measurement occurs after the reporting deadline.

Luke Fritz is executive director of the Butler County Farm Service Agency.