STE. AGATHE, Man. – Thick, lush stands across Manitoba’s eastern and central grain belt look like they carry bumper crops.
But don’t believe it.
“Everything looks good, but there’s nothing in the heads,” said Rob Rankin, assistant manager of the Agricore elevator in Ste. Agathe.
Across the eastern edge of the prairie grain belt, farmers are coming to the realization that the bumper crop they thought they had is being destroyed by disease and bad growing conditions at crucial times.
Farmers here had lots of rain this spring and summer, in contrast to much of the rest of the Prairies and across the country, where drought conditions prevailed.
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But the rain never stopped.
First farmers had to contend with weeks of wet weather in the spring. Soils were already saturated, so every extra millimetre sat on the surface, delaying seeding.
Rankin said farmers in his area could seed only sporadically, getting a couple of days in before having to wait a week after a rain.
Crops advanced rapidly once they were planted. While continued rain caused flooding and germination problems in some places, most areas received the right amount of heat and moisture through much of the summer to bring a heavy crop along.
At the end of July brutal heat hit the crops, which were vulnerable because they had been seeded late. As well, heavy rains began falling again. That raised humidity to 90 percent in some areas, which stayed long enough for fungal diseases to go wild.
“It’s been quite devastating,” said Beausejour ag rep Ed Taillieu.
“Crops continue to deteriorate.”
Rust has broken out in oats and barley that are supposed to be resistant.
Fusarium is widespread in cereals, while sclerotinia is common in canola.
Heavy oats crops are only slowly filling combine hoppers, Taillieu said. In one crop he recently examined, appearance and reality were far apart.
“It looks like it’s a great crop, 7 0-80 bushels, but when you get in there and tear some heads apart, I don’t think there’s 30.”
Wheat that looks like it should yield 55 to 60 bu. per acre is only bringing in 20 to 35, say farmers who are beginning to harvest.
Barley crops, which normally yield 80 to 85 bu. per acre in this area, are only getting 40 or less. Oats that should be yielding 100 bushels per acre are instead yielding only 20 to 50.
John Hollinger, the agrologist who compiles the Manitoba Agriculture crop report, said weird weather has created ideal conditions for a crop wreck.
“It seems they’ve gotten every rain that’s gone through,” Hollinger said.
Fusarium is widespread, but no one will know how badly it has hurt eastern Manitoba cereals until they’re harvested.
Because of the late seeding, farmers will need another month to get crops into the bin.
