Hartwell Huddleston returned the extra combine he bought to help harvest what looked to be one of his best soybean crops ever.

After two months with little letup in rain, he figures he got five days' of work out of it. And the quality of some of the crop he brought in from his northwest Mississippi fields was so rough, an elevator refused truckloads.

Late-season rains have delayed harvest from the Great Plains to the Deep South, frustrating farmers and raising questions about whether some in the hurricane-ravaged Gulf region would be able to stay in business.

And Chad Hart, an extension economist at Iowa State University, says the longer the remaining cotton, corn and soybean crops stay out, the greater the potential for consumers to face higher prices.