Chuck Fossay must be an optimist.The Manitoba farmer was calculating the potential profit of reseeding canola as he scouted his soaked cropland west of Winnipeg June 14.”If we could get a 25 bushel crop from canola and if the price rallies up to $9 (per bu.), that’s a pretty viable option,” said Fossay, who farms near Starbuck with his brothers.He had 3,800 acres of wheat, oats, barley, canola and soybeans in the ground by May 21, but the 160 millimetres of rain that fell in late May and early June across much of central and eastern Manitoba forced him and many other growers to recalibrate expectations.”We had crop up and looking really nice, and now it’s just dying back because the roots drowned out,” he said. “Fields that were green three or four days ago, we’re now seeing them turning yellow…. Everybody right now is checking their fields trying to figure out whether or not they’ve got enough of a plant stand to have a viable crop, or do they need to work it down and reseed it?” Manitoba Agriculture said in its most recent crop report that conditions had improved slightly in the province’s central region, but farmers would have a tough time reseeding before the June 20 crop insurance deadline.Fossay estimated that 800 of his 3,800 acres are drowned out. He remains hopeful that he’ll be able to reseed 400 acres before the deadline if the weather stays dry this week.Growers aren’t feeling as optimistic east of Winnipeg near Dugald, said Brent Reid, a farm production adviser with Manitoba Agriculture.”People at this point in time are saying, ‘you know what, it’s really too wet to do anything,’ ” he said. “Maybe if we get a couple of days (of dry weather) the ground is probably passable for spraying, but certainly not for seeding.”
Central Man. soaked, crop insurance deadline looms
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