ALBANY, N.Y. (AP) – Maureen Torrey, the owner of an 11,000-acre vegetable farm in western New York’s Genesee County, is seeing her profit go up in smoke – diesel smoke.

Torrey normally spends more than $1 million a year on fuel costs, but this year expects to spend at least $300,000 more. She hasn’t looked at the projections lately though.

“It’s too depressing,” she said. “Fuel is a major input cost for crops and for processing vegetables. There really is no way to make an adjustment. All of our costs have skyrocketed. Everyone is looking to see how they can conserve, but it’s tough to cut back on some things.”

That is especially true now that most crop and vegetable farmers are in the middle of harvest season, the time of year when their trucks and equipment are most used.

“It could not come at a worse time,” said Mike Beard, a hog, corn and soybean farmer with a 1,000-acre operation near Rossville, Ind., 18 miles northwest of Indianapolis.

Beard said he’ll cut back on tilling and is leaving his corn plants in the field longer than usual in an effort to save money. He spent $40,000 on propane to keep his animals warm last winter and expects that amount to double this year.

The average U.S. retail price of a gallon of unleaded gasoline was $2.80 on Monday, below the all-time high of $3.06 on Sept. 5, but almost a dollar more than a year ago.

The average price of diesel fuel on Monday was $2.73 a gallon, according to the federal Energy Information Administration. That’s 82 cents higher than it was a year earlier and nearly double what it was in September 2003.

Terry Francl, a senior economist with the American Farm Bureau Federation, said the Agriculture Department in February estimated U.S. farmers would pay $8.2 billion for fuel this year. Officials expected that number to climb another $2.5 billion with the higher prices and the effects of Hurricane Katrina, he said.

“Agriculture is very energy intensive,” Francl said. “There’s not a whole lot you can do.”

The cost of anhydrous ammonia fertilizer, made with natural gas byproducts, has increased by an estimated 25 percent this year. And that was prior to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, according to the Illinois Farm Bureau.

David Taylor, the owner of Concord Nurseries in North Collins, about 20 miles southwest of Buffalo, said he’ll be bringing on an extra 30 people in the next two weeks to harvest his fall crop and run his 13 trucks and 18 tractors.

He’s not looking forward to the expense of shuttling those workers between the several locations that make up his 900 acre operation.

Fuel prices “are really going to have a huge effect,” he said. “We’re going to be harvesting our nursery stock and that’s a huge travel expense. We’re sitting down and trying to figure out how we can reduce travel time. We’re trying to run more efficiently than we ever have.”

Taylor added that the greenhouses he operates are heated with natural gas, which has more than doubled in price over the past year.