MASON CITY - Iowans like the predictions of a giant corn crop this year, but they wouldn't bet the family farm on it just yet.

"I think we'll have a good crop if we can mature it," said Gary Weiner, manager of Cartersville Elevator. "A lot of corn needs to be matured. If we get a late frost, that will be the best thing to help us."

Projections are calling for 13 billion bushels of corn. That would be just shy of the 13.04 billion bushels harvested in 2007.

Steve Abbas, executive director of the Franklin County Farm Service Agency Office, agreed there is the "potential" for a large crop if it has time to mature.

"My agronomist, who I think is just an excellent person, has been out doing yield checks," he said. "I know in his newsletter to his customers in his findings he was coming up with yields of anywhere from 175 to 240 bushels of corn an acre. That's quite a range, and that's kind of a high range."

Some may be surprised by the estimates, considering Franklin and Wright counties recently were declared contiguous disaster areas by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack because of heavy rain and hail in August.

"Quite honestly we've had very little if any damage in this county," Abbas said.

"Whatever hail there's been hasn't really hurt anything."

The two counties were named contiguous disaster areas only because the neighboring counties were declared disaster areas, Abbas said.

While Abbas' agronomist is estimating high yields, he isn't sure yet.

"Personally on my own farming operation I had some early corn that didn't look real great, and I have a field next to it that looks fantastic," he said.

The weather and the first killing frost will be the deciding factors in how the crops really turn out.

"If we can stall out the frost we'll have a good crop," Weiner said. "I don't know about record breaking, but I think it will be as good as the last couple of years."

The giant crop isn't only good news for farmers. It's also good for livestock producers, who should benefit from lower feed costs.

But it probably won't make a big difference in the cost of groceries.

Although corn is a key ingredient in countless things, most of a product's cost is tied to labor and transportation.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.