After punishing heat that prompted a statewide drought watch, the weekend's rain was a welcome — albeit uneven — gift to Pennsylvania's farmers.

The rain alternated between thunderstorms and drizzle for several days and hit the state inconsistently.

According to the Penn State Cooperative Extension, some counties received as much as 3 inches, while others got next to nothing. Leon Ressler, the county Extension director, described the distribution as "extremely spotty."

Lancaster County fared better than many places — Franklin and Perry counties, for instance, will have severely limited yields — but its crop vitality differs from farm to farm.

Irrigation, organic practices and choice of crop appeared to be major factors in the distinction.

Casey Spacht, manager of the Lancaster County Farm Fresh Co-op and owner of the all-organic farm Lancaster Farmacy, said that the crops he keeps irrigated did well throughout the heat, while others suffered.

Spring Knoll Farm supported its wildflower crop with an irrigation system of 2 to 3 pumps attached to a creek-fed well, farmer Jack Sullivan said.

Other farmers, such as Ben Degaetano of Sweet Annie Produce, attributed their farms' resilience to organic methods.

"Chemical crops strip the soil of nutrients and its humus," he said, "and they don't put biomass back into the soil." This leaves fields less able to retain moisture.

"My fall crop will be late in planting," he said, "and the rain might encourage funguses, but my field wasn't hurting. My winter squash weren't even wilting."

Corn, however, is Lancaster County's most distinctive cash crop. And it was perhaps the heat's worst victim.

Corn production often involves chemical components, Spacht said, and is especially vulnerable to pests such as flea beetles during hot weather.

"They tear into corn," he said, "and make fishnets out of the plant."

Ressler notes that the health of particular fields depends on when they were planted.

"It's too late to make a difference for the early planted corn," he said, "but later planted corn will do fine."

If the corn was mature enough to be pollinating when the heat struck, Ressler explained, that process may not complete. If the heat struck post-pollination and during the development of kernels, those kernels may abort or not fully fill out the cob.

If the corn was too young to pollinate, however, it should be in the clear.

All in all, Ressler said he believes that "most of our corn will be average and some will be above average. Overall, we will probably have at least an average crop."

Average is still better than nonexistent, and for many this rain made the difference.

Ruth Thomas of Thomas Produce said that the rain saved her corn and her soybeans.

"We have the moisture to get our fall crops started," she said with a smile.

jpianka@lnpnews.com