Daily thunderstorms are threatening what looked like a bountiful harvest.
A major hailstorm at the end of June devastated many crops, but a lot of farmers dodged the bullet and said their crops were the best they’d seen in years. After a rash of hailstorms over the weekend, some aren’t so sure.
Initially, Aldersyde area farmer Leroy Newman was one of the lucky ones. His fields were just a few hundred metres away from the damaging hail that fell June 28. The past weekend’s storms knocked down some fields, which he said could mean a long and difficult harvest.
“A lot of the later crops are falling down,” he said. “They’ll be harder to get off, so it will probably be a long harvest this year.”
Just one week earlier, Newman anticipated a good yield going into the harvest season. Now, he’s hoping drier weather moves in quickly to put an end to the nightly storms plaguing the region.
“We’re just sitting on pins and needles every night, sitting and praying,” said Newman. “Everything could be gone in nine minutes.”
Though most farmers in the area were touched by hail over the long weekend, he said none of it was as devastating as the June storm, which wiped out a number of crops and had many grain farmers turning to insurance to cover their losses.
Despite unpredictable and potentially damaging weather, Newman said crops that dodged the icy bullets are still looking good and strong.
The only exception is hay, which he said has suffered this year because April, May and June were too dry to produce strong fields. Hay production has dropped by about 30 per cent in 2016, he said.
Newman said land south of Vulcan is a lot drier this year and isn’t seeing quite the same results, but in the Foothills area crops not damaged by hail are looking very healthy. His canola, peas, wheat and malt barley fields have grown better this year than in the past, and he said it’s the same everywhere he looks.
“Wherever I go, I’ve never seen such good crops,” said Newman. “Last year was a good year, but this is a much better crop.”
There is a catch to having good yields – the grain price is dropping fast, he said. Wheat is currently sitting at $5.40 per bushel as opposed to $7 per bushel in 2015. Canola has dropped from $11 in 2015 to $9.50, and malt barley is down to $3.70 from $4.50 per bushel last year, he said.
“Grain price is falling because of such a big crop, so we might make the same amount but have more yield,” said Newman.
He said the bigger issue will be whether product can move quickly. If trains aren’t able to carry away grain fast enough farmers could be faced with a problem, he said.
“With big crops there will be so much grain, most people can’t store it so they need to get it distributed fast,” Newman said.
Before any of that can happen, there is still the harvest. Newman said it should happen at the usual time this year, toward the end of August and beginning of September. He had intended to take his peas down earlier this year because they were planted early, but the rain has shifted his plans.
“They’ll probably be ready by the third week of August,” said Newman. “We thought they’d be earlier, but with all the moisture they just kept growing.”
Blackie-area farmer Phil Rowland said he expects to harvest around the first week of September.
He said the rain had a very positive effect on his crops, which have produced a good yield this year. His fields sustained some hail damage, but nothing too devastating.
“The amount I’ve lost personally to hail has been made up for with good grains elsewhere, so I’ve been lucky that way,” said Rowland. “But I know there’s a lot of guys who have been just wiped out.”
