Indiana crops recover after flood, new threat looms - Forbes.com

Two months after flooding swamped many Indiana farms, the state's corn crop is in the midst of an "amazing" rebound after weeks of good weather that revived once waterlogged fields.

But Purdue University agricultural economist Chris Hurt said farmers now have a new weather worry - the threat of an early frost that could slash the yields of late-planted crops.

Hurt said Thursday that Indiana's corn and soybean crops are a week to 10 days behind average in development and if the state's current streak of unseasonably cool weather lingers into September cold weather could end the growing season early.

A killing frost in mid-September 1974 caused significant crop losses, he said.

"For heaven's sake, no early frost," Hurt said. "The solar energy and nutrient energy that's getting deposited into the seeds everyday, every hour there's photosynthesis, all that stops if there's a killing frost. It's done."

He said that ideally, warm, dry conditions will persist well into the fall, giving corn and soybeans time to mature and develop their seeds further before cold weather arrives.