Farmers from Larchwood to Lansing are struggling to get crops planted after up to 8 inches of rain during the first two weeks of May saturated fields across northern Iowa. The delays are primarily affecting the top two tiers of counties across Iowa, said Paul Kassel, Iowa State University (ISU) field agronomist in Spencer.

“It’s been really wet. It reminds me of 1991, 1993 and 2013,” he said. “There’s people who haven’t done anything.”

Kassel estimated less than 10 percent of corn acres have been planted north...