After dozens of media reports this summer predicting disastrous corn yields in Ontario, a provincial corn expert is now saying the crop will likely come in slightly below average.
It’s hard to know for certain, since the harvest is barely underway, but it appears that yields across Ontario will be 10 percent below average, said Greg Stewart, a corn specialist with Ontario’s agriculture ministry.
“We’re just getting started into the corn harvest. Most guys are in soybeans right now,” Stewart said in late September.
“(But) the estimates are in the 135 to 140 (bushel per acre) range.”
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In Ontario, the five-year average corn yield is 150 bushels per acre.
In July, journalists from newspaper, radio, television and online media filed hundreds of stories on the plight of Ontario farmers, as a drought threatened to wreck the province’s corn fields and other crops.
A sizable number of Ontario corn growers will certainly harvest a poor crop this fall. However, the situation didn’t live up to the hyperbola widely reported two months ago.
In general, yields will depend on timely rain and the water holding capacity of the soil, Stewart said.
“Much of the province was flirting with average (yields) most of the summer,” said Stewart.
“If you got a rain at the right time, that’s pretty obtainable. If you missed that rain, all of sudden it looks sort of ugly.”
Mark Brock, a corn and soybean grower near Staffa, Ont., said there are pockets around the province, including Hamilton, Brantford and Ottawa, where the corn crop has suffered.
However, the crop looks excellent in the region around his farm. Brock won’t combine his corn until early October, but he is feeling confident about potential yields.
“We’re going to be above our long-term average and right around our five year average,” said Brock, who farms 1,400 acres, including 575 acres of corn this year.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we see 180 bushel corn…. We’ll be above our crop insurance average.”
Corn prices are higher than $7 a bu., and Brock said this will be a year of extremes for Ontario corn growers.
“Some guys will have their best year farming, with the high prices and good yields. Some guys are going to have some of their poorest yields in awhile.”
