By Lori EhdeCorn is standing tall, soybeans are growing lush in their rows and, all in all, crops in Rock County are shaping up nicely, according to local agronomist Chris Hein."It seems to be so far so good," he said Tuesday. "Everything looks great."Area producers weren’t so confident this spring. They entered planting season under near-drought conditions, and then waited out a long, cold spring. Early sprouts, lacking warmth and sunshine, emerged a sickly, yellow color.But when the hazy summer heat finally set in, it didn’t take crops long to catch up.Hein, who works at SWMN Farmer’s Co-op Elevator, said there are some parts of the county that suffer from too much or not enough moisture, but generally speaking, he’s not hearing many complaints."As a whole, things look good," he said. "Anytime you can catch the kinds of timely rains like we’ve had in July ... that keeps us rolling in the right direction."Despite the slow, cool start, Hein said crops are now ahead of average in terms of growing degree unit days."Corn is actually progressing faster than we’d see in a normal year," he said.Some concerns lingering on the horizon may be soybean aphids and soybean rust."Don’t count aphids out yet," Hein said about the tiny insects that suck sap out of the plants. "Right now they’re not threatening, but we have some time yet to see on that."He said aphids were a big problem two years ago, but aggressive spraying in 2003 seems to have curbed the insect population.Soybean rust is plaguing fields in the southeast which were introduced to the fungus last year by Hurricane Ivan."It’s a fungus that can kill a field quickly if it’s infected," Hein said.The fungus is spread by air, so Hein said it’s unlikely the problem will spread to the upper Midwest."The majority of our weather patterns don’t come from that part of the country," he said. "Soybean rust this year is going to be a non-event for us."Hein said the outlook for local yields looks gook."For this point in the growing season, things look to be very promising," he said.