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Volume 116 Issue 13
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Harvest progress ahead of seasonal average
Let’s Go Rural! event engages local students
LESLIE CHOLOWSKY PHOTOS
Flagstaff high school students had a great opportunity on Wednesday, Sept. 20, in Killam at a ‘Let’s go Rural’ event sponsored by Rural Health Professional’s Action Plan (RhPAP) and the Flagstaff Healthcare Attraction and Retention Committee. Students got to go hands-on at a number of different stations and talk to rural health professionals. Above left: Suturing practice was part of the day’s curriculum. Above right: Students got to practice putting in an IV line. See story/photos on Pg 22 & 24.
RCMP report young girl approached by suspicious person P6
Wednesday, September 27, 2023 s
Leslie Cholowsky Editor It’s harvest time for Flagstaff County farmers, and as of last Tuesday, most were ahead of the seasonal average in terms of completion. Flagstaff County Ag. Fieldman Nick Dunn says that’s outstanding, considering the twists and turns the weather has taken this growing season. “We got to get in the field a little earlier than expected, and there was something to get in the field for. We are ahead of the game, ahead of our averages, which is kind of a trend we’re seeing across the province. Normally at this time of year we’re sitting at 55 per cent complete; right now we’re at 66 per cent, and that’s as of Sept. 19, so we’re even farther ahead now.” Dunn says harvest is going fairly well, especially considering how close Flagstaff County was to declaring an agricultural disaster earlier in the season. “Due to those conditions improving, basically we got rain, that led us away from that.” Dunn says ground moisture was there for seeding, but with weeks of no rain, it wasn’t looking good for area farmers. The rain did finally come, he says. “Any later and we wouldn’t have seen the growth we did.” “This year we’ve got the good, the bad, and the ugly if you look at the entire region, we’re all over the map; the direct result of inconsistent rain and storms.” Because of that, crop maturity has been all over the map. “It seemed like canola was flowering for a month and a half,” he jokes. With the recent rain, he says he has noticed a lot of second growth around, with that he says, we can expect that sprayers will be going with post-harvest application. He adds that cool nighttime temperatures and shorter days serve to naturally slow down crop and weed growth. Dunn says Flagstaff County ended the growing season with near normal precipitation levels, between 13 and 15” of rain. “It just comes down to timing, earlier would have been better.” Pulse crops in the region are 100 per cent harvested. Dunn says the County’s rental scare cannons were busy keeping geese off the last of the pulse crops until they could be harvested. He says most of the canola has at least been swathed. Last week was an excellent week for harvest weather-wise for springseeded cereals, he says, with rain
showers more of a delay in harvesting than a true impediment. “But a lot got done.” The area has not recorded any damaging frost yet, to his knowledge. “I hope it stays away until harvest is done, it’s just another delay to getting started each day.” With great progress over the last week, Dunn hazards a guess that most farmers will be done harvest by the end of the first week of October, just around the corner. He says that the central portion of the county, from east to west, received the most rain this season, and that’s where yields are the most favourable, “for those who didn’t get hit with hail, of course.” He says random storms are another thing that spread crop maturity out this growing season. “Hail has had a massive impact on our crops, although some did bounce back well from it, especially canola, that’s why it was flowering for so long.” Dunn says there are dry pockets still existing in the north, and especially in the southern parts of the county. “The County of Paintearth to our south declared an agricultural disaster due to drought.” He adds, “If we had not have got that rain, we would have been declaring agricultural disaster.” He says yields have been somewhat unexpected. “Guys were thinking they’d be in the field earlier this year, it was a blessing that they weren’t, as they waited for the crop to cure.” “There are still a lot of crop insurance claims out there, likely more than in past years. I know adjusters are busy, I would ask that farmers try and be patient, they are trying to catch up.” He says despite the dryer spring, the area was lucky with low grasshopper infestation, adding that Wheat Midge infestation has been high the last couple of years, including this year. He says more crops were put into sileage this year than anticipated, good news for ranchers whose hay fields saw little growth this spring, too. Dunn says some guys had to sileage a little more than they anticipated, mostly due to hail damage, with some cereal crops being sold for feed. That helps local producers, where drought affected pasture growth, too, he says. He knows there are local producers who have made the decision to reduce herd numbers, adding that he hopes beef prices stay high.