20130808

Page 1

THURSDAY, AUGUST 8, 2013

VOL. 91 | NO. 32 | $4.25

Growers beware Giant ragweed found in Manitoba | P. 5

Price dive ahead? SERVING WESTERN CANADIAN FARM FAMILIES SINCE 1923

|

WWW.PRODUCER.COM

An expected fall in U.S. corn prices could impact Canada | P. 7

YOU CAN’T PICK YOUR RELATIVES BUT YOU CAN PICK BERRIES WITH YOUR RELATIVES

Corey Kasa of Kasa Berry Farm drives the mechanical saskatoon harvester while his wife, Lyndel, parents, Maxine and Randy, and son, Marshall, sort through the berries as they are coming onto the conveyor belt. About 90 percent of the berries on the farm are machine harvested. The original trees were planted in 2000. | MARY MACARTHUR PHOTOS

WEATHER | FROST

u|xhHEEJBy00001pzYv$:#

Cold July revives frost fears Are crops at risk? | Long-season crops need some warmer weather before summer ends BY ED WHITE WINNIPEG BUREAU

It feels like there’s been no summer this year, yet the crops look great in most areas. However, farmers can’t get beyond the fear that frost is lurking underneath the unseasonable coolness, ready to snatch away this year’s bounty. “We need either a real warm finish to the season or a long fall without frost,” said Myron Krahn, president of the Manitoba Corn Growers Association (MCGA). “We need a lot of time in September without a frost.” Farmers with corn, soybeans, sunflowers and other long-season crops are anxiously counting their heat units and checking out their crops to see what the long stretch of cool weather in July and into August has meant to their crops’ development.

“Frost isn’t too much of a risk for our canola, but I’m more worried about our soybean fields,” said Brian Chorney of Selkirk, Man. The summer has been weird but OK for most traditional prairie crops such as wheat, barley, oats, canola and many special crops. Most farmers and agronomists report that crops are looking good, but it doesn’t remove the anxiety that many are feeling with the unseasonable chill in the midsummer air. “It was such a cool spring, then the temperature really cranked up at the start of July for a few days, which made everyone optimistic again, then so quickly summer seemed to end,” said Krahn. For canola, the cool conditions have been almost perfect for promoting an extended and bountiful flowering season. Farmers in many areas report high pod counts and little of the heat blasting of flowers that

reduced 2012’s yields. Most small grains are also helped by coolness in midsummer, especially when they are in the reproductive stages. “The growing conditions for most crops have been pretty good,” said Bruce Burnett of CWB. “But we’d certainly like to see a hot, dry finish.” Farmers and crop experts echo that sentiment. The cool weather has delayed crop development but also given them a better chance at big yields than would not have been possible without the coolness. It will even be good for long-season crops such as corn as long as fall frost can be avoided. “The cool weather is really good right now because we’re in pollination,” said MCGA agronomist Morgan Cott as she checked out a farmer’s field. “We don’t want it too hot right now.

This weather is actually very good.” What farmers will need is an August at least as warm as usual and a September that doesn’t contain early frost. Weather experts think they have a good shot at getting that kind of good luck. Drew Lerner of World Weather Inc. and David Phillips of Environment Canada think farmers will likely see cool temperatures for the first 10 days to two weeks of August, but then a normally warm spell for the last two weeks of August. And neither expects an early frost this year for the Prairies. “I don’t believe we’ll have any freezes in August and that we could run a little bit late in parts of Saskatchewan and Manitoba with our first frost and freeze this year,” said Lerner. SEE FROST FEARS, PAGE 2

»

The Western Producer is published in Saskatoon by Western Producer Publications, which is owned by GVIC Communications Corp. Publisher: Shaun Jessome Publications Mail Agreement No. 40069240

AUGUST 8, 2013 Return undeliverable Canadian addresses to: Box 2500, Saskatoon, SK. S7K 2C4


Turn static files into dynamic content formats.

Create a flipbook
Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.