Farmers are taking stock of what's turned out to be a bountiful year.

Though a cool and wet spring got the farming season off to a rocky start, some farmers say they're celebrating higher than expected crop yields.

Allan Arndt, a farmer with about three thousand acres of crops, said he wasn't hopeful when the season started.

He said the weather made for a difficult growing season that included some delays in when farmers could get their crops into the ground.

But when they could, Arndt said, the results turned out to be encouraging.

"It was a double bump that we didn't anticipate," said Arndt. "With the weather that we had, you never know how good your yields are going to be until they are on the farm and in the bin and I think a lot of people in this area will be pleasantly surprised."

Jim Stute, a crops and soils educator for UW-Extension, agreed that Rock County and southern Wisconsin farmers, in general, had a good year.

"We were down just a little bit from our record year in 2010," noted Stute.

Stute said that for farmers, good years can hopefully make up for bad years -- and then some.

"When they have a good year, they're able to pay down debt from bad years, or they are able to replace equipment and upgrade to the latest technologies."

But what does the good news mean for consumers and the upcoming 2012 harvest? Stute said that's difficult to predict.

"Wisconsin is just a small piece in the overall puzzle in the United States, grain market production in particular. So prices have gone down a little bit so that should be reflected in the prices we see at the grocery store," Stute said.

But the good news for some farmers can be bad news for others.

Higher crop prices can be a good thing for crop farmers, but for livestock farmers it can mean an increased price for the cost of feed.

"As a diversified farm, when we make a little extra money in the grain business, typically that results in more expenses for the livestock business," said Arndt.

Arndt said it's difficult to say how much of an increase they've seen while providing feed for about 2,000 cattle.

Balancing profits with an increase in costs is what Arndt says is the nature of their business.

But Arndt is still optimistic.

"If we had a year next year like this one, we'd be very happy again," Arndt said.

Stute said more precipitation would help to fuel that optimism, as an increase in snow and rain would raise the level of moisture stored in the soil and make for a good harvest later this year.