Farmers in the British Columbia Peace regionhave been searching for rain all summer, but they didn’t want it to come during harvest.
Walter Fritsche of Dawson Creek, B.C., said he is worried rain may stain and downgrade his unharvested grain.
“Any rain will be detrimental to grades,” he said.
Fritsche is surprised the early crops are yielding as well as theyare, considering earlier dry weather. Early seeded canola yielded roughly 20 bushels per acre, but he has other fields that won’t yield as high.
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“We have fields that are considerably poorer.”
The pea crop harvest also went surprisingly well, he said. His peas yielded 20 bu. per acre and came off in good shape.
“They are dry and nice and clean. I am surprised the peas did as well as they did.
“We’re on the edge of Dawson Creek and it’s bone dry here.”
Fritsche’s father, also Walter, said his hay yielded well. A snowfall on the May long weekend, followed by hot, dry weather, helped produce a decent crop.
“We were reasonably happy with it. We got it up in really good shape.”
Fritsche sells hay to horse owners in Yukon and in the nearby coal mining town of Tumbler Ridge and expects to fetch a good price for it.
Barry Critcher, who farms between Dawson Creek and Fort. St. John, hasn’t started harvest yet. He had just begun swathing canola when rain halted his work.
Dry weather seriously affected his crops. Critcher said in some fields he is putting two swaths together, about 15 metres of crop, to get enough to go through the combine.
“We don’t have a lot of crop to harvest.”
Rain prevented him from starting his barley harvest.
“We have some barley that’s terrible. The barley is barely six inches tall and is very hard to combine.”
Nick Parsons of Farmington, B.C., said the rain isn’t welcome after a summer of drought.
“Everything here is at a standstill.”
Crops that have been harvested are very light. Some barley has yielded 24 bu. per acre, wheat around 30 and oats about 30 bu. per acre.
Parsons said crop insurance adjustors have estimated his drought affected oat crop will yield 30 bu. per acre. A small field of oats seeded in the Peace River valley to protest the Site C dam yielded 45 bu. It looked like it would yield more, but was lightweight, Parsons said.
“ I think there will be lots of surprises on the negative side,” he said.
“We are just waiting for the weather to clear up. We get two dry days and a wet day.
“As soon as we want to get started harvesting, it won’t stop raining. We’re not looking forward to a very bright harvest. I’m saying 30 to 40 percent of an average crop at best.”
