BOW ISLAND, Alta. – Southern Alberta looks like an emerald oasis of green grass this spring but water is shimmering beneath the plant canopies.Since April 1, about 300 millimetres of moisture in a normally semi-arid region have created wet fields, drowned crops and deep sloughs.“It is more moisture in a spring period than anybody has ever seen,” said Bow Island farmer Rob van Roussel, who grows cereals, peas and potatoes.“We’re not used to it and our soil can’t use that amount of moisture.”Floods across southern Alberta to the Saskatchewan border June 18-21 inflicted heavy property and road damage that can be repaired, but farmers are struggling to salvage crops and eroded topsoil.“Normally guys would welcome a two or three inch soft rain in the third week of June but everything was just saturated. After the first half inch, stuff was starting to run off because the soil couldn’t take it anymore,” said van Roussel.As he drives the back roads in a mud spattered truck, he sees idle irrigation equipment, neighbours pumping out sloughs and water standing in the furrows of his potato fields.Van Roussel seeded the last of his Russet Burbank potato crop May 18, about two weeks later than normal. Some overly wet fields were abandoned.“I made a management decision earlier not to plant the questionable areas and so that turned out not too bad.”He wonders what harvest will be like.“What we are worried about is storability. Some of the plants might come up but you don’t want to harvest the tubers out of there because they’ll have a few diseases that are latent and they won’t show up until harvest,” van Roussel said.He foresees a summer full of problems manoeuvring machinery and irrigation equipment through the wet, low spots.He is already far behind in spraying because he can’t get into fields.“They don’t seem to drown out,” he said.People are looking at options.“There is no salvage of the crop in some of these areas but if we can get the water out and even get a wheat crop growing in there, it will use up a few inches of the moisture,” he said.“It’s just a recovery operation so there might be some greenfeed,” van Roussel said.“We will need a near perfect growing condition from now till the first killing frost.”Farmers are also watching their edible dry beans and sugar beets. About 30,000 acres of beets went in and contracted bean acreage totals more than 48,000 acresMorris Zeinstra, who farms north of Picture Butte, said his family’s corn silage and sugar beet crops look pathetic. They farm about 1,000 irrigated acres and about 150 acres are drowned.Sugar beets are behind and need a near perfect summer to relieve some of the damage.“You can barely see them in the row. This time of year, the rows should be covered,” he said.“I’ve been here 42 years and this is the worst I have ever seen.”Andrew Llewelyn-Jones, agricultural superintendent at Lantic Sugar at Taber, said sugar beet emergence was slow because of the cool, wet spring.About 60 percent of the crop was in the ground by the end of April and the rest went in whenever growers could enter fields throughout May. The crop is about two weeks behind schedule.About 200 acres were lost to flooding but yields should be normal and sugar content acceptable if the summer is hot and dry, he said.“Beets will come through this. Our yields may not be as high as we might have liked but the beet itself should be fine,” he said.Owen Cleland, production manager at Viterra’s bean plant at Bow Island, expects lower yields on dry edible beans.In some areas where heavy soil is saturated, beans will be plowed down and crop insurance collected.Seeding started in mid May but heavy rains kept coming and some seeds rotted or the plants that emerged were not strong.In recent years, yields were around 2,100 pounds per acre but this year they will be lucky to see 1,800 lb.“Beans don’t like wet feet when they are young and we have had nothing but cold and wet,” he said.Growers are looking for days when the daytime temperature reaches 27 C and nighttime temperatures are 15 C because beans will grow around the clock with the right amount of heat units.“It’s critical for a lot of special crops because we have to worry about frost at the back end,” Cleland said.
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