Recent rains will make it a rotten year for wheat farmers, according to the wheat board — unless you’re an Albertan.
Massive amounts of rain have seriously delayed seeding across much of the Prairies, said Bruce Burnett, director of weather and market analysis for the Canadian Wheat Board last Friday. “This is an unprecedented event in Western Canada,” he said. “In the last 40 years, we haven’t seen conditions over such a large area this bad.”
The rains broke records and soaked fields across Saskatchewan and Manitoba, with Saskatoon seeing its most rain in over a century. Farmers would normally be done seeding by now, but because of the wet weather they’re only about 78 per cent finished.
About eight to 13 million acres are expected to go unseeded this year as a result, Burnett said, with just 19 million acres of wheat planted in total — the smallest area since 1971 and about 18 per cent smaller than last year. Durum and barley areas were also down, with barley at its lowest level since 1965.
“This is going to be one of the most challenging years for farmers,” Burnett continued, with the economic impacts felt for years to come. Excess moisture could also mean more crop disease, further eating into yields.
The situation was quite different in Alberta, he noted. Although hit by the same downpour, Alberta’s super-dry soil absorbed the rain easily, resulting in few seeding delays.
Most farmers were done seeding in Sturgeon County, said AndrĂ© Montpetit of Sturgeon Valley Fertilizer, and were starting to spray for weeds and pests. “The crops are off to a great start and are looking better than they ever have.”
Many farmers were hoping for more rain to make up for last year’s drought, he continued. “It’s not like the ditches are full of water,” he says. “It’s very dry down below.”
Conditions are perfect right now, but any long period of heat could throw the region back into drought.
The wheat board predicts a harvest of about 19 million tonnes of wheat, Burnett said, or a bit less than the average of 23, and about eight million tonnes of barley, compared to an average of 10.
The full report can be found at www.cwb.ca.
Canola farmers could be in for a swarm of diamondback moths this summer, according to the province.
Diamondback moths are centimetre-sized moths that seem to have yellow, diamond-shaped marks on their wings, according to Alberta Agriculture. Few of the bugs survive Alberta winters, so their numbers usually depend on the timing and size of spring migration from down south.
Monitoring stations have caught relatively high numbers of diamondback moths in recent weeks, said Scott Meers, insect management specialist with Alberta Agriculture, with about 50 to 60 showing up in some traps each week. “Because of the early migration and the numbers in the migration, we’re expecting this will be an above average year for diamondback.”
Farmers should keep an eye on diamondback numbers in coming weeks as a result, said Ward Toma, general manager of the Alberta Canola Producers Commission. “It’s a great big warning flag right now.”
The moth’s green caterpillars typically attack during the flowering and pod stages of canola, Meers said, and often hang from the plants on a silken thread. The bugs eat the outer layers of seed pods, making them easy to shatter and reducing yield.
The recent cold, wet weather might reduce diamondback and grasshopper numbers, Meers noted, but could also lead to an outbreak of aphids. “We still need to be watching.”
See www.agric.gov.ab.ca for details on diamondback detection.
