Late plant early harvest

[dean nelson]

So the crops went in decently late this year but somehow are magically coming off early how in the hell does that work. Wasn't to surprised to see the corn coming off but can't say I remember seeing flowers coming off in mid September before.

 

[bowhunter88]

A lot of flowers started getting sprayed and killed off after labor day.

 

[Downrigger]

The heat will do that

 

[Auggie]

Sunlight plays a big role in crop development, but heat is also important. For every 10C increase in temp, biological activity doubles untill about 60C (sorry, the conversions to farenheit aren't linear).
To account for this there's a thing called growing degree days (gdd). Crops like corn, sunflowrr, and wheat need a certain amount of GDD to become mature. Soybeans are more photosenitive and mature when the day length shortens (heat is still important here).
Abiotic stresses will also speed up maturity. The plant is programed to make seed for future progeny. It wouldn't surprise me if all the August smoke played a role in maturing soybeans. The drought certainly exaserbated it.