PRESQUE ISLE – Despite significant rain that has fallen across Aroostook County this week, the benefits to the 2002 potato crop were still a mystery Thursday.

“We’re in decent shape to put a crop in the ground,” Donald Flannery, executive director of the Maine Potato Board, said recently. “Where it’s going to tell is between now and the first part of July into August.”

Between Saturday and Monday, 2.29 inches of rain fell at the Caribou Airport, according to Hendricus Lulofs, warning coordination meteorologist at the National Weather Service office there.

As of midnight Tuesday, 3.83 inches of rain had fallen in April at Caribou, more than 2 inches above the norm of 1.78 inches.

Last year, only 0.66 inches had fallen during the same period of time.

For the calendar year beginning Jan. 1, 13.71 inches of water fell as snow and rain at Caribou, compared with the norm of 11.10 inches.

Last year 7.41 inches had fallen during the same time period.

While the situation has improved this year, the deficit left over from last year still puts the region behind, Lulofs said.

“We don’t know how much rain it takes to make up that deficit,” he said, adding that surface water is the first thing to respond, as is vegetation, which greens up with the spring rain.

“Groundwater is the big unknown,” he said.

Flannery of the Maine Potato Board said farmers would be asking themselves the same question.

“I think everybody’s going to be conscious of the fact that we’re going to need irrigation,” he said. “We have to be cautious and take water when we can and not take more than we can.”

He added that historically, Maine farmers have been able to get by without substantial irrigation. He said farmers in western states are not as fortunate and irrigation is required for them to have a crop.

Flannery said field preparation and planting could be early this year, with farmers in southern sections of the state possibly getting a crop in by the end of the month.

In the north, he expected that the 2002 potato crop could be in by the first full week in May.