DAYTON - The last time Jay Penner saw the potential for stripe rust to cut yields at his farm in half was 50 years ago .

That was right around the time of his high school graduation, when his family grew the club variety of a wheat called Omar on the household's farm northwest of Dayton.

"The red (from the rust fungus) was so bad you couldn't tell the combine from the field," Penner recalled.

Penner and many other farmers in the Touchet Valley are working hard to avoid such catastrophic losses this year, but they're on edge because weather conditions haven't been optimal to spray the fungicide that prevents rust held over from last year from damaging the plants before the kernels begin to show.

"If the wind blows for two weeks, which we've seen around here, and we can't apply the product, we're going to be in big doodoo," he said. "I'm nervous because it's not all sprayed at this instance."

Is he losing sleep over it? Not yet. But the stakes are high this year with wheat prices hovering around $9 a bushel and rain fall promising an abundant crop.

."This is one of the worst years we've had for the disease," said Stephen Guy, an agronomy specialist at Washington State University in Pullman. "This is a very, very unusually cool spring."

Stripe rust survived the winter this year and began to proliferate thanks to persistent spring-time precipitation in the region. A number of wheat varieties have a builtin resistance to rust but that doesn't kick in until the plant begins to mature, Guy said.

Relatively cool temperatures may have slowed the growth of rust somewhat and farmers were more on top of treating their crops after some local growers lost half their yields in some fields last year.

Spraying against the fungus in winter wheat began earlier, with farmers or applicators mixing the fungicide into the herbicides they normally put down on the winter wheat that time of year. But such applications are only good for about four weeks and many farmers are saddled with the cost of spraying for a second time, possibly a third.

"Within the last 10 days, we've seen a lot applications made for the second time," said Matt Weber, agronomist at the McGregor Co.'s office in Waitsburg. "If the current pattern continues there's the possibility of a third application."

Brian Rust, a Waitsburgbased agronomist with Wilbur Ellis, agreed.

"This year, we're trying to stay ahead of the game," he said. "Guys are spooked after what they saw last year."

Val Woodworth, owner of Cropland Air Service, a Waitsburg-based business that provides aerial applications, said he had to bring in a second airplane to help meet demand for his services. But with all the rains and winds, the number of days the pilots can go up is limited.

"This has been one of the toughest springs in decades," he said. "We fight the weather. We need Mother Nature to straighten out."

That's also Penner's wish.

The Dayton-area grower is spending $6.50 - $8 per acre on a second application and may face a similar expense for a third treatment. Seeing the writing in the wheat, he got on the list for an application three weeks ago and has wrapped up putting it down on half of his agreage.

The good news is that higher wheat prices and the prospect of bigger crop yields means growers have more financial flexibility to shield their fields.

"A guy can afford to put a little more money into it to protect his crop," he said.

That 's provided the weather cooperates long enough to open the window for applications.

Weber said there's no reason to panic. Even though farmers have to stop spraying before the plants' heads emerge, "there's still plenty of season left" for applications.

"We can go until the middle or end of June," he said. "We typically have a dry June here."