Canola was Brian Hildebrand’s Cinderella crop this year. Too bad Cinderella looked more like an ugly troll than a beautiful belle at Hildebrand’s harvest ball.
“Peas went about seven (bushels to the acre). I think the winter wheat was eight. I had a little bit of canola on fallow and it went 12 or 13 – that was my shining star this year,” said the farmer from Skiff, Alta.
If there is an upside it’s that there are still lots of nutrients in his soil. Hildebrand won’t be doing any fall field work this year. In fact, he hasn’t purchased fertilizer since the fall of 1999.
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He isn’t alone.
Ross McKenzie, a soil scientist with Alberta Agriculture, said many producers in drought stricken regions of Alberta and Saskatchewan are either cutting back on fall fertilizer or skipping it altogether.
“In the dryland areas the fertilizer sales are down hugely. There has almost been no fertilizer sales at all.”
McKenzie said those farmers are exercising common sense by staying off the fields this fall. They didn’t produce much of a crop so there are significant carryovers of most nutrients for the next year.
“If it’s extremely dry, the economics of putting fertilizer on in the fall just really aren’t that good.”
Dismal sales are harming fertilizer producers and retailers.
“There has been some substantial layoffs by some of the fertilizer companies,” said McKenzie.
Agrium, one of the top two nitrogen producers in the world, is one of those companies. Spokesperson Jim Pendergast said most of those layoffs stem from this spring when the company shut two plants in Fort Saskatchewan, Alta., and one in Redwater, Alta.
“We were facing warehouses that were basically full at the end of May,” said Pendergast.
The company reopened its ammonia plant in Fort Saskatchewan in September, recalling about 50 of the 120 employees that were laid off, but the outlook remains grim.
“We’ve seen a very slow fall, particularly in southern Alberta and parts of Saskatchewan.”
Kevin Zerr can attest to that. He is an agrologist at Swift Current Agri Services Ltd., a fertilizer retailer located in one of the drier regions of Saskatchewan.
He attributes “really flat” fertilizer sales this fall to dry land and dry bank accounts. Farmers who continuous crop are in particularly bad shape, said Zerr. Those with summerfallow fields have enough subsoil moisture that they could apply fertilizer, but even they are reluctant to buy nitrogen.
Saskatchewan Agriculture soil specialist Ken Panchuk said the problem is not so much subsoil moisture levels but the lack of enough topsoil moisture to allow the furrow to close behind the shank of the applicators.
Panchuk said even dry soil has enough moisture to allow anhydrous fertilizer to convert to ammonia, but if the furrow stays open behind the injector, the gas will be lost to the atmosphere.
He remains hopeful that fertilizer sales haven’t totally evaporated the same way. The window for fall fertilizer application isn’t closed until the ground freezes, which is usually around mid-November, said Panchuk.
Zerr estimates that if the Swift Current region got half a metre of wet snow, some farmers would change their mind and start fertilizing.
“Most guys are watching the clouds and the weather reports and it doesn’t take much to make that decision.”
His biggest fear is that the fall precipitation won’t come and there will be a run on fertilizer in the spring. Then the industry won’t be able to keep up with the demand.
“There’s just not enough trucks to deliver the stuff,” said Zerr.
Hildebrand isn’t anticipating big demand for fertilizer on his farm come spring, but he remains optimistic.
“If there is a lot of moisture, well then my attitude could change pretty quick too, I guess …. It could start anytime.”
