Colquitt County farmers have gotten into full planting mode after cooler weather last week caused a delay.

MOULTRIE, Ga. — By the reckoning of Ecclesiastes, it’s time to plant in the county and then some. While cool weather slowed down activity at the end of the week, it should pick up again in earnest this week, Colquitt County Extension Agent Jeremy Kichler said.

Farmers in the county have planted more corn this year than last year, Kichler said. Judging by what he has heard and seen in the fields corn acres are up 10 to 15 percent, but it is still a fraction of the area’s staple row crops — cotton and peanuts.

“Corn comes in a little bit earlier, in September, so maybe it’s a cash-flow thing,” he said. “Or they could be looking to diversify.”

Cotton growers are often waiting to harvest their crop into October or November, and sometimes even in December.

Farmers have already been planting corn and dryland peanuts and had cranked up on irrigated acres before the temperatures dipped on Thursday and Friday.

“They’re going to hit the gas pedal tomorrow,” Kichler said Friday. “People are getting into cotton planting, into the main swing of peanuts.”