COLEVILLE, Sask. – Grain bins in varying shapes, sizes and fading colours face each other in two neat rows at Ronald Whitfield’s mixed farm near Coleville. Only one is full after a dry summer left the region with short crops, low yields and uncertain futures.
“OneÐthird of the bins are two-thirds empty,” Whitfield said.
Number one grades and high protein levels are the consolation prize in a year plagued by grasshoppers, sawflies and too many cloudless, searing hot days.
“Rain evaporated as soon as it came down,” Whitfield said.
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“It didn’t even freshen things up. If it stays like this, there’s no use putting anything in the ground.”
He and son Darwin will do little fall work on their 13 quarters this fall.
“If we work it again, it will probably blow away.”
Darwin said perennially low crop prices and higher fuel costs become a greater problem when yields are so low.
“When you’re paying for last year’s crop out of this year’s yield, it’s a double whammy.”
Ronald, a volunteer crop reporter for Saskatchewan Agriculture for more than 25 years, said it’s dry from south of Kerrobert to Kindersley. The region had only 15 centimetres of snow last winter and has not been this dry since 1988.
The spring started with some moisture for germination of their wheat, durum, barley, oats and canary seed. They also grow oats to feed their 15 cows, pastured across the grid road in the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration community pasture.
“We didn’t put up any forage,” Darwin said.
“There was none to cut.”
Ronald said the PFRA pasture manager was kept busy pumping water from wells to dugouts most of the summer.
The Whitfields saw good germination initially, but were forced to plow under 250 acres of crops.
“There was nothing there,” Darwin said, noting sowing disturbed the soil enough to dry out the seed bed.
Ronald said that when he conducted soil probes for his crop reporting job earlier in the season, he found 76 cm of moisture in stubble and 61cm in summer fallow.
Darwin is usually driving the school bus by the time combining begins, but this year harvest started Aug. 21.
It went smoothly, with the crop needing little time on the ground to dry before being picked up.
There was little pressure on both the truck driver and equipment, due to the small crop and no breakdowns or rain delays. Working at night was not possible.
“If we went too late we couldn’t find the swath, it’s so thin,” Ronald said.
With so little to combine, the machine used half the normal amount of fuel.
Canary seed was their best crop, in part because the grasshoppers feasted on canola instead.
Yields averaged 10-12 bushels per acre for wheat and durum, and higher where the showers touched.
Darwin said they were optimistic enough in the spring to choose hail over drought coverage in their insurance packages, fearing the hail that decimated an excellent crop last year.
“Hindsight’s always better than foresight,” Ronald said.
Heavy land did not fare better than light land nor did low or flooded ground yield better crops this year.
Next year, the Whitfields expect to see less stubble planting.
“This land doesn’t work well for stubble,” said Darwin, who noted his farm’s 50-50 crop rotation.
Crop insurance, Ronald’s new pension cheques and revenue from gas and oil pumps are a big help to the Whitfields, but decisions still need to be made about culling cattle coming off the pastures. They say it is not feasible to buy feed at $75 a round bale from irrigated or eastern Saskatchewan farmers.
They have some reserve feed, but ditches and sloughs did not yield a single bale.
“What there was, the grasshoppers mowed ’em off,” Ronald said.
By contrast, to the north at North Battleford, there is great variability in harvest results.
The local elevators report “awesome grades,” although yields are a tad under normal and moisture conditions are poor.
Communities like Leoville and Debden that were showered with timely rain are reporting their best crops ever.
Near Denholm, mixed farmer Wayne Katerynych reported top grades and yields just under average, thanks mainly to a few spotty showers.
With no rain in the forecast, he was in no hurry this windy October day to combine his last crop of canola, which he expected to yield poorly due to erratic germination.
The wheat is yielding around 30 bu. per acre, the canola is at 25 and flax is 23. He baled his barley to feed his cattle.
He has a carryover of feed from last year, but is down to the last of that supply.
Fall seeding will not be possible, because of the lack of moisture. That is despite the fact he uses an ultra-low disturbance system to plant his crops, passing the fields only once. He continuous crops and leaves stubble to trap the snow. Snow is also caught by an abundance of trees in the valley where his farm is located.
Still, he pointed to dry and lower than normal sloughs and dugouts, one as low as it’s been in 48 years.
Dry weather meant he could not count on getting cuts off his hayland, so he put his animals on it to graze instead.
He knows there will be more culling of animals this year, which could affect cattle prices. Katerynych will wean and sell his calves three weeks earlier than the normal date in November.
The dryness will also affect the amount of inputs he can afford to use in the coming year.
“We’ve got a great start to next year’s drought,” he said.
The voracious appetites of young gophers wiped out his canola seedlings, munching down large patches and forcing Katerynych to reseed a field to wheat. Large numbers of grasshoppers laying eggs could spell further trouble for crops next year if dry conditions persist.
Gophers and badgers are also responsible for torn-up pastures and broken cattle legs this year, he said.
Harvest did reap some rewards, including better than expected grades and yields. It required a lot more careful combining to avoid rocks to get the short crop off, but the equipment was less stressed because it had a lot less straw to work with, he said.
Katerynych started the year optimistically by renting more of his neighbour’s land.
As the summer unfolded, enthusiasm turned into stress and anxiety, he said.
