By Kevin Ma
County farmers may be in for a sub-par harvest this fall due to this summer's hot, dry weather, say analysts.
Temperatures in the low 30s baked St. Albert and Sturgeon County over the weekend, worsening an already dust-dry situation for many farmers.
John Bocock said he's had barely over half an inch of rain since spring at his farm just north of St. Albert. His hay crop was so light as a result that, for the first time in history, he's managed to finish his first cut of it before the end of June.
"It's shaping up to be worse than 2002," he says, referring to that year's drought.
Ward Middleton of Midmore Farms near Morinville says he's had about an inch of rain all year, which is substantially less than normal.
"We're not doing very well so far."
Many farmers would be at a tipping point this week and looking to divert their sub-par crops to animal feed, he added.
The county region has accumulated just 65 of the 165 millimetres of rain it usually gets by this point in the year, says Environment Canada climatologist David Phillips. Cool weather in May helped relieve the pressure, but that's ended with the recent heat wave, and there's more heat to come.
"You've had more days above 30 this year than you had all of last summer," Phillips says. Temperatures for the next week were also set to be about six degrees above normal.
"The word 'drought' is being used right now," he continues, likening this year's situation to the dryness of the 2001-2003 era.
"In 68 years of winters and springs, there's never been a drier one in the Prairies than what you've got right now."
At fault appears to be a big blob of warm water off the west coast of North America that's deflecting all the weather around the prairies, Phillips says. That's created a huge ridge of high pressure over this region that acts as a dry, weather-free zone.
Alberta Agriculture crop analyst Harry Brook joked that he felt "rather affronted" that the province had not received its appointed spring rains this year. Instead, it's had to deal with highly variable scattered showers.
"If you're under the right cloud, you're doing OK, but in general, things are dry."
Many farms would have had dry conditions last month during the vital four-to-six leaf stage of their cereal crops – the time when those crops create seeds – permanently damaging their yield.
"The damage has been done," Brook says.
"You pretty much can say right now that it's guaranteed to be probably below average yield at least."
Canola crops could recover later this year, but not if they just bloomed during last week's heat wave, he continues. Canola can't handle temperatures over 26 C, and any flowers that were open last week would have been just blasted, causing them to abort their seeds.
"You're kind of frying a good chunk of your yield potential."
Pasture crops were also poor in general across the province, which could force farmers to tap their feed reserves much earlier than normal.
But Brook notes that dry weather is actually pretty typical for this region, and that the wet springs of the last five years were actually more of an aberration.
"We're on the prairies, for goodness sake."
Local crops will need at least a quarter-inch of water per day for the next few weeks as they enter their peak growing period, Brook says.
"We really do need to have big moisture events now and for the next month to ensure what's left will fill properly."
