Compared to cotton or tobacco, corn is not near the top of the moneymaker list for Edgecombe County farmers.

With expensive maintenance costs and sandy land to plant it on in the county, Extension Agent Art Bradley said that for "most of our growers, corn is not their primary crop.

"It's not what they depend on (for) a lot of their income," not like with cotton or tobacco, Bradley said.

In 2006, revenue from corn was less than 4 percent of the county's agriculture income, just $4 million out of nearly $120 million.

In 2007, Edgecombe's corn income was $5.4 million, spread across 22,000 acres.

That acreage will drop more than 40 percent this year, as Bradley estimated 12,800 acres of corn were planted in the county.

So far this year, Bradley has not estimated Edgecombe's yield average. He did say that a third of the county's crop is expected to average less than 50 bushels per acre, with some spots only yielding 20 bushels per acre. The lowest yields will be in the southern and eastern parts of the county, Bradley said.

In 2006, the yields were excellent, at 124 bushels per acre. The yield in 2007 was only average, at 70 bushels-per-acre, but Bradley said he was surprised the crop performed even that well.

Last year, he thought the county would have only a 50 bushels-per-acre average, because of the severe drought the region went through and continues to endure.

This year's crop has to endure the conditions that have held over from last year.

Farmers who planted their corn earlier this year, around the first week instead of the third week of May, "suffered the worst" from the dry weather, Bradley said.

Unlike tobacco or cotton, which have six week bloom times and can bounce back from drought with some rain, corn has to have rain during its short week-to-10-day bloom time to have a satisfactory yield, Bradley said.

When the rain showers came earlier this month, he said they "probably helped about a third to a half of our (corn) crop.

"The other (corn) was beyond the rain really helping it," he added.

The lack of rain affected not just the corn's stalk and ear size, but even tampered with the corn's pollination cycle, leaving ears of corn with fewer kernels, he said.