The damp, cool weather in October may have delayed harvest across most of the Prairies, but it devastated the corn crop in Manitoba.
More than 520 producers have filed claims with the Manitoba Agricultural Services Corp. for mould damage in their corn, said MASC claims services manager David van Deynes.
The corporation provides insurance for 560 Manitoba corn growers representing 161,325 acres. MASC doesn’t know how many acres are affected, but van Deynes said it’s likely most of Manitoba’s crop will be written off.
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“A good percentage of those (producers) would’ve been looking at their entire crop because in some of the major corn growing areas, the Red River Valley, mould has been pretty significant,” van Deynes said.
MASC hasn’t had as many mould claims in western Manitoba so it’s possible corn growers in that region are less affected, he added.
However, because most of Manitoba’s corn is grown in the eastern half of the province, the 2009 harvest will likely be similar to 2004, when almost the entire crop was lost to mould.
Late planting, a cool summer and delayed plant development all likely contributed to the mould problem this year, said Pam de Rocquigny, a feed grain specialist with Manitoba Agriculture.
However, wet conditions following the first hard frost in early October pushed the crop over the edge.
“The real kicker was after that first killing frost, we didn’t have nice sunny, warm, windy days,” she said.
“It went straight to cloudy and rainy conditions.”
De Rocquigny said the corn crop east of the Red River from Steinbach to St. Pierre and south was probably hit hardest by mould.
Lorne Loeppky, a grain and hog producer near Niverville, had 980 acres of corn in the ground but all of it was written off because of excessive mould.
“Our area east of the Red River, I haven’t heard of anybody … that has corn that did make it,” said Loeppky, who chopped up his corn last week and worked it back into the land.
He said his crop would have made it if it was warmer in October.
“I don’t know what normal is anymore. But if we had normal weather, I think we would’ve been harvesting corn right now,” he said.
“But it was just so damp and cool…. This stuff just didn’t have a chance.”
The mould levels in Loeppky’s crop exceeded the MASC threshold, which is five percent of the cobs having more than 10 percent mould.
Van Deynes said that standard is a precautionary rule rather than being based on hard science.
Typical corn moulds, such as epicoccum, cladosporium and fusarium, produce mycotoxins that are harmful to livestock.
“Moulds are not all created equal, and we’re not testing every field for the type of mould,” he said.
“So the threshold is based on it being not a very safe mould when it comes to feeding to livestock… We’re erring on the side of caution.”
