Edmond Aime is already thinking about next year.
The Redvers, Sask., farmer has yet to take off his own section of flax this fall, but he’s not anticipating good yield or quality.
“It’s a real mixed bag,” he said of what he’s heard about the flax harvest. “I’ve already lined up (seed for) the variety that I would like.”
The main concern is the wide variance in crop maturity. Fields hit hard by frost Aug. 20 were in full bloom a month later.
“It looked like it was July 20,” Aime said.
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Today, they are a mix of ripe bolls, flower blossoms and green stems.
“They’re never going to make it,” he said.
He has heard that crop insurance adjusters completely wrote off a local seed grower’s crop. Another farmer who harvested 130 acres of flax didn’t get more than 100 bushels.
Statistics Canada last week predicted flaxseed production will drop 11 percent to 671,900 tonnes this year. The agency said more than 230,000 acres of flax, mostly in Saskatchewan, have been lost due to frost. Flax production could end up the lowest in 11 years.
But near Neidpath, Sask., Lyle Simonson said his harvest was going well, yielding slightly above average.
“We were in the fortunate situation to have missed frost until just more than a week ago,” he said Oct. 8. “We seeded early and it matured well. We’re thanking our lucky stars.”
Dale Risula is Saskatchewan Agriculture’s integrated cropping management specialist at the Agriculture Knowledge Centre in Moose Jaw.
He said some fields continued to bloom after the August frost because flax tries to reproduce itself through seed. It sent out more flowers after the first set was hurt. The result is that the crop is not maturing as it should.
Risula has had reports of empty bolls, soft watery green seed, black shrivelled seed, white seeds and white powder inside the bolls. He cautioned against feeding frozen flax to livestock unless it has been tested for prussic acid or hydrogen cyanide.
“The danger is most pronounced in flax that was still quite green when it froze,” he said.
When an animal consumes prussic acid, it is absorbed into the bloodstream and prevents the release of oxygen. The animal can die of asphyxiation unless a veterinarian takes immediate action.
Prussic levels can remain high in the plant for several weeks after frost. A producer who wants to use a flax field for swath grazing should wait at least one week after frost and also feed hay or grain.
Nitrate levels should also be checked.
Some producers are choosing to swath and burn entire crops, not just the straw. Aime said cutting the green straw in some cases isn’t as difficult as it normally would be because there is no fibre in it.
“You can cut it green at 10 miles an hour,” he said.
He predicts a lot of smoke in the air in southeastern Saskatchewan this fall as the flax harvest continues.
Both Simonson and Aime are directors of the Saskatchewan Flax Development Commission. It bases its levies on volume of both seed and straw and could soon be revising its budget.
