Terry McMillan is eager to get in his tractor and start seeding his fields this spring. But the Wimbledon-area farmer first has to finish his fall harvest.

"We've still got some corn out there - roughly, I suppose, 1,000, 1,200 acres," he said.

Record snowfall, the likelihood of spring flooding, volatile commodity markets and standing corn promise to make this year's spring planting season in North Dakota a little crazy, and a lot tricky.

"Right now it's like three strikes and you're out and you've already got two," said Andy Swenson, a farm management specialist with the North Dakota State University Extension Service, referring to last year's wet fall and the severe winter that followed. "This may be a year when guys are thinking about how to minimize losses rather than maximize profits.

Doug Hagel, the regional director of the federal Agriculture Department's Risk Management Agency, said flooding may prevent many fields in the Red River Valley of eastern North Dakota and western Minnesota from being planted - perhaps the most in years.

Swenson said prices for farm products have dropped below the cost of production "pretty much across the board for major crops."

"It's pretty tough now, tough on paper," he said.

North Dakota farmers are coming off two profitable years. Agriculture Department data show the value of the state's crop production in 2007 set a record at $6.65 billion, and last year's value nearly equaled it at $6.59 billion.

But commodity prices that skyrocketed in late 2007 and early 2008 have since nosedived, in part because of an easing of tight global supplies for most commodities.

"With megatrends driving the (commodities) markets - not the true fundamentals (of supply and demand) but the stock markets, world economy - it's hard to predict where prices are going to go," said Jim Peterson, marketing director for the North Dakota Wheat Commission.

Peterson said part of farmers' decisions on what to plant this spring likely will be based on the returns they got on individual crops last year. That could be good news for North Dakota's staple crop.

"Wheat held its own last year," Peterson said.

Spring wheat in 2008 once again was North Dakota's largest-valued commodity, with a total value of $1.72 billion, according to federal data. That was down only 1 percent from 2007 - generally considered to be the best year for agriculture in North Dakota in recent memory.

Perhaps the biggest surprise in small grains was barley, which rose in value 39 percent over the year to a record $423 million.

"Barley's going to compete for acres" this spring, Peterson said.

McMillan said no crops have "exciting" prices right now. Markets "will have to start bidding for acres soon," he said.

He likely will plant a similar amount of corn and soybeans this year, if he can get the standing corn harvested in time.

That might be difficult for many farmers who got trapped by a wet fall and then early snow, said Tom Lilja, executive director of the North Dakota Corn Growers Association. With as much as 20 million bushels of last year's corn - 10 percent of the crop - still in the field and buried by snow, "it's going to be a very big challenge," he said.

The main issue is not the potential loss of the corn but the possible inability of farmers to get a new crop planted on that ground. Many farmers in eastern North Dakota rotate corn and soybeans in their fields.

Farmers could see reduced crop insurance coverage if they fail to meet certain deadlines for getting their crops in the ground. The deadlines in North Dakota vary by crop and region.

Canola, most of which is grown in northern North Dakota, is one crop that might be affected.

Barry Coleman, director of the Northern Canola Growers Association, said a few pockets in the northeastern part of the state might not be suitable for planting.

There are threads of optimism amid the uncertainty. If farmers get some dry days, "You can get a lot done in 10 days time with the modern machinery that we have," Lilja said.

While many farmers will be forced by the weather to wait, others are likely to hold off on making decisions until much later than they normally would, while still others are apt to make last-minute changes in crop variety or selection.

"More guys are straddling the fence (on what crops to plant) than normal," Swenson said. "Certainly in the eastern part of the state, guys are wondering what it's going to be like."