If it hasn’t been the rain, it’s been the cold. If it hasn’t been the cold, it’s been the wind. If it hasn’t been the wind, it’s been the lack of sun and heat.
For local agricultural producers, what could go wrong for 2010, has gone wrong so far.
Crops are behind schedule across the board and for some, the situation is worse than others. For an area that depends on irrigation water to make it through each season due to our water-needy crops, the taps have barely been turned on this spring, as rain after rain has pounded southern Alberta.
Last week’s flurry dumped another two inches, or more depending on where you farm, to add to an already wet and soggy situation. Owen Cleland of Viterra’s bean plant east of Taber, said bean crops are 10 days to two weeks behind schedule. Some of the crop has not, or will not even get out of the ground.
“All the low spots are pretty much gone. There was some reseeding done but the cold, along with that makes nothing want to grow. Some fields won’t even get seeded, and there’s problems with the seed rotting in the ground. It’s not great out there.”
That may be an understatement, as the crop-insurance deadline has now passed for those who may have still wanted to plant beans. The deadline had already been extended from June 10. That five-day extension meant little, as rain continued to fall.
Cleland added beans need a good 100 days to became a productive crop. Even if beans were seeded now after the insurance deadline, growers would need all of September and the first part of October to be frost free, which may be asking for too much when one considers the cool spring southern Alberta has already experienced.
Even with the beans already planted, Cleland added a hot summer will be required to help the crop catch up and bring in at least an average yield. Under ideal conditions from here on out, bean growers will not be able to deliver on all the acres they intended to seed.
“We were at 48,000 acres contracted to be seeded, and I’m going to guess between the wet spring and areas that can’t be planted, we’ve probably lost 800 acres.”
That could turn out to be even more, however, if crops are not given an opportunity to recover.
“We have seed that’s been in the ground for three weeks that hasn’t come up yet.”
The beans that have emerged have reduced stands, which puts them at risk as well.
Before the last batches of rain, beans were having difficulty of a different sort, as earlier rains left fields hard and crusted, and seed had difficulty breaking through. Growers irrigated then to soften the soil, and have since been hit with a deluge of rain.
The amount of moisture received last week was simply unsustainable for fields already soaked, added Cleland.
“The first three-quarters to an inch was probably sucked up. The rest will start running and fill up the low spots because the soil was saturated as it is. The water has no place else to go.”
Local potato fields are in no better shape. Edzo Kok, executive director of the Potato Growers of Alberta, said the recent rain has made the situation worse.
“The earlier moisture resulted in many low spots being lost, if they had been planted, and left the fields very saturated.”
So early in the potato-growing season, Kok added there simply are not that many potato plant up that can even put the rain water to use.
“With not much in the way of plants yet, there isn't a lot of uptake by the crop and the field moisture is staying quite high. Most of the fields had very little capacity to handle the rainfall of the last few days and began ponding immediately. We'll need some sun, heat, and wind to get rid of the standing water and allow the fields to dry-out before the plants suffocate.”
He added producers will not be waiting on Mother Nature to dry the fields, and will be taking action to help fields dry and at least try and come through this already-challenging season with some average yields.
“Growers will be dragging the pumps out again to help things along. Planting did finish later than normal and conditions have not been ideal for good crop production. Unless we have exceptional conditions going forward, we will see reduced yields due to the lateness of the crop and the losses to excess water.”