At Fike Farms in Jasper, a rural farming community a stone's throw from the Ohio border, a very strange sound for late May could be heard: birds chirping, and little more. Near silence.

The 3,000-acre family farm growing corn, soybeans and wheat in southern Lenawee County is usually a whir of activity by that time. Corn and soybean planting usually starts by May 1, if not earlier. Typically, the fields are planted by the end of the month. But this year, the muddy ground sat idle, with not a hint of green as far as the eye could see, as May became June. Huge tractors were parked in pole barns. A large disc tiller, usually being pulled along the fields to prepare the ground for planting, instead sat on the field's edge, an overgrowth of surrounding grass seeming to try to pull it down into the landscape.

What ground the farm's operation to a halt — and did the same for farms across Michigan and the Midwest — is the same thing needed to bring life to the fields: rain. Only too much of it, too often. And according to researchers monitoring the effects of human-influenced climate change, such wet springs will become a more regular occurrence in the years to come.

According to the National Weather Service in White Lake, there was measurable rainfall in this portion of Lenawee County for 19 of May's 31 days. It was the same, or worse, for other parts of the Midwest. Only since the first week of June has there been any letup.

"I think a lot of growers are just sitting," Chris McCallister, a consultant who works with farms throughout a five-county area of southeast Michigan and northern Ohio, including Fike Farms, said in a late May interview.

"We need four days of dry weather, wind and sunshine to dry things out. It seems every day we get three-tenths to a half-inch of rain. We get one good day of drying and then it rains again. We don't ever catch that complete window, where everything is dry enough to at least get in the fields."

It made corn and soybean planting historically late, threatening yields for this fall. It has driven up those commodities' prices, and, according to economists, could ultimately spike prices in the supermarket on things like chicken, beef and pork, which rely on corn and soybeans for feed.

It's the third straight wet spring that has thrown corn and soybean farming into chaos, and it's the worst of the three.

"Last year, we didn't start before Memorial Day, but it's going to be at least a week to 10 days after that this time," said Mike Fike, a co-owner of the farm.

Fike's been in farming for about 50 years. "I don't really remember not getting started before (June)," he said.

Climate scientists project that the continued warming this century of the Great Lakes region — already warming faster than the rest of the continental United States — will make rainier, stormier springs a more regular occurrence, and could drive down corn and soybean production by 10% to 30% in the southern portions of the basin by 2050.

"In general, what we're seeing is the Midwest and the Northeast getting more precipitation than in the past, and more of that coming in larger events, particularly in the winter and spring," said Don Wuebbles, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Illinois.

"That's just pure, statistical analysis of the past data. If we look forward, we're expecting that trend to continue."

A May 28 Michigan Crop Weather report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture found 33% of corn planting was completed statewide, compared with a 73% five-year average for the week ending on May 26.

"This is the slowest we've ever had," said Theresa Sisung, Michigan Farm Bureau associate field crops and advisory team specialist of corn planting.

More:

No, the polar vortex doesn't mean climate change isn't real

Endangered piping plovers face trouble from surging Great Lakes levels

Michigan black beans served in Mexico, farmers need stable trade

Climate changing in the Great Lakes

A wet season or two can't be definitively tied to climate change — the study of climate looks at weather patterns over a prolonged period: 10 years, 30 years or longer.

What researchers are confident saying, however, is that the Great Lakes region has experienced an increase in both average temperature and rainfall and snowfall amounts over the past few decades. And that human activity — the burning of heat-trapping fossil fuels — is the driver.

The increases in temperature and precipitation are tied. Rising air temperatures increase evaporation from soil, plants, lakes and oceans. Warm air also warms the water molecules in the air, making them less likely to condense. The net effect: a greater atmospheric reservoir of water vapor for release during snow and rain storms.

For every 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit increase in atmospheric temperature, the air holds 6% to 7% more water vapor, causing downpour intensity to increase, according to the Fourth National Climate Assessment, a comprehensive federal report on climate change and its impacts compiled by a collaboration of federal researchers and required by law.

U.S. annual precipitation increased 4% between 1901 and 2015, but the Great Lakes region saw an almost 10% increase over that interval.

Heavy rains are getting heavier as well. Researchers looked at the top 1% of rainfall events, based on the amount of rain that fell within a 24-hour period, and found that the amount of rain falling in those heavy events has increased 42% in the Midwest since the 1950s. Only the northeastern U.S. had a more pronounced increase, at 55%.

The future looks wetter, too

The trend is projected to continue. In a peer-reviewed research paper published by the Royal Meteorological Society in November 2017, researchers from the University of Notre Dame examined 31 climate models, selected 10 that accurately modeled past climate conditions in the Midwest, and then projected 30-year future trends based on different levels of greenhouse gas emissions.

The results: Projected temperature increases in the Midwest by up to almost 12 degrees Fahrenheit by 2100 in a scenario where heavy greenhouse gas emissions continue, with precipitation increases of up to 30% in spring and winter.

Many climate models show summers getting drier in years to come, leaving farmers facing a sort of double-whammy: wet springs forcing later-planted crops, which then are unable to develop deeper roots to reach more scarce water in the summer.

Continued warming is projected to occur unless there are "substantial and sustained reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions" such as carbon dioxide, the report on the Great Lakes region found.

"Increases in growing-season temperature in the Midwest are projected to be the largest contributing factor to declines in the productivity of U.S. agriculture," the report states.

"Farmers are saying, 'We get it. We're seeing this over and over again. Our springs are wetter,' " Wuebbles said.

"It's a real concern. I worry very much about the farmers."

From rain to runoff to algae blooms

Heavier spring rains, and more violent storms, will also contribute to nutrient runoff from farm fields, a key driver of algae blooms in places like western Lake Erie, where an outbreak of microcystin, a toxic blue-green algae, led to a "do not drink the water" advisory for more than 400,000 residents in Toledo and southeast Michigan for a weekend in August 2014.

"We've been concerned about these changing trends in weather patterns on a seasonal basis," said Laura Campbell, who manages the agricultural ecology department for the Michigan Farm Bureau.

"We're getting an increasing intensity in storms that we're finding more difficulty managing. We know these trends are happening, and we know that water management, as a part of nutrient management, is going to be more and more important.

"It's a growing issue of significance for us because all eyes are on Lake Erie."

Understanding that drier summers are also projected to increasingly become part of the equation, the task for farmers becomes "not just how do we manage nutrients in a wet spring, but where do we put the water so we have access to it later in the summer?" Campbell said.

Farmers are trying to help, Fike said, by putting "just the amount of fertilizer a crop needs, and not over-fertilizing."

"We don't want to be a part of that (Lake Erie algae bloom) problem," he said. "We're paying attention to what's going on, and doing everything that we can do. But if there's a flood, we can't help that. So, from time to time, there's going to be some runoff."

After rains were forecast to continue through the first full weekend of June, the days after showed a clearing trend, leaving hope that an accelerated frenzy of planting could start soon.

"Farming’s a risky business — it always has been," Fike said. "But we’ve always had a crop, we’ve always had a harvest.

"It’s one of those times where if you’re person of faith, you have plenty of opportunity to trust God in these situations."

Why too much rain is too bad for corn

A primary reason corn and soybeans can't be planted in mud is the heavy machinery involved can't be used, McCallister said. Tractors and tills will damage the fields, and the machines can get stuck, he said.

Too much water is also bad for a seed, he said.

"You want some moisture and heat to make the seed germinate," McCallister said. "But you need oxygen. If you're saturated, (the seed) could just begin to rot. Even when the seed germinates, it can be too wet. If the roots can't get oxygen, they die out."

The problems just cascade from there. Late-planted crops may not have the growing days to produce corn and soybeans, or might not dry out sufficiently for harvesting, he said.

"If we stay wet and saturated and we do plant, the roots will stay shallow," McCallister said. "When it's drier in the summer, they can't get down to the groundwater. It reduces your yield."

It's not only the many days of rain, but the lack of warm, sunny days, said Chris Coscarelli, who works the farm with his father-in-law, Mike Fike.

"By this time, we've usually had some stretches of days where it gets to 75, 80, even 85 degrees, that help dry the fields out. We haven't had that this year," Coscarelli said in late May.

Fike was left trying to exploit any small planting windows that arise from a couple of dry days in a row as June started.

"Last year, my son-in-law and I worked for about three days straight," Fike said. "We stopped and slept in the pickup for a couple of hours at night, and then back at it. It just takes the fun out of it when it gets compressed to such a small period of time."

Government-subsidized crop insurance, protecting farmers from catastrophic crop failures year over year, required corn farmers to have planted their crops by June 5 in the region around Jasper. After that, each day, the potential returns from the policy are reduced. The soybean crop must be planted by June 21 for full crop insurance coverage.

"(Crop insurance) lets you live to fight another day," Fike said, adding the reductions for late planting "just means it's a greater risk for us that we have to bear beyond the insurance."

Will the late planting hit food prices?

The Chicago Mercantile Exchange, where commodities, including farm products, are bought, sold and traded, took notice of the wet spring's disruption of planting, and is betting on a reduced yield in the fall.

"Corn prices have jumped 80 cents (a bushel) in the last four or five days — they've gone from $3.40 to $4.30," said Jim Hilker, a professor in Michigan State University's Department of Agriculture, Food and Resource Economics.

"The corn price could go up another dollar."

About one-third of all corn produced in the United States goes to livestock feed. Hilker isn't predicting a hit to consumer prices in the supermarket yet because of the late planting. But, were one to occur, it will likely hit first the cost of eggs and chicken, he said.

"It takes a long time to hit the beef and pork market," he said. "Cow-calf producers (a method of raising beef cattle in which a permanent herd of cows is kept by a farmer or rancher to produce calves for later sale) have to think this is going on for a couple of years, and keep less heifers (female cows). So it takes quite a while for it to affect the beef market, and one year (like this) probably wouldn't do it.

"Eggs it will get to quicker. Farmers can react a lot quicker: 'My costs are really up. I don't have to put in as many chickens.'"

About 27% of corn produced in the U.S. is used to create ethanol, which is blended with gasoline. But Hilker said ethanol producers forward-price their corn on a more long-term basis.

Ultimately, how everything connected to corn and soybeans is impacted, and when, remains to be seen, he said.

"If the question is, are we venturing into territory where we don't have many answers? The answer is yes," Hilker said. "The longer this goes, the harder this one is."

Contact Keith Matheny: 313-222-5021 or kmatheny@freepress.com. Follow on Twitter @keithmatheny.