ELGIN, Man. – As Souris, Man., farmer John Turner and his father-in-law, Gary Williams, checked out a research plot of sunflowers, their hopes turned to their own sunflower crop.
“Ours looks pretty good right now, but you never know until you get the combine into the field,” said Turner, examining a healthy looking head of sunflower seeds that managed to survive the drought in southwestern Manitoba.
“If we can get three-quarters of what you would get in a normal year, we’ll be happy.”
Many farmers think of sunflowers as a crop that does well in a drought, and that wisdom was borne out this year in southwestern Manitoba. Most crops suffered when the soils dried up under week after week of dry hot weather, but sunflowers did better than anything else.
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Manitoba Agriculture oilseed specialist Rob Park told farmers during a National Sunflower Association tour that the crop is ideal for the area.
“They always stand out here in southwestern Manitoba because it’s a little drier here (than in the Red River valley), but this year they’ve stood out even more than a lot of normal annual crops,” said Park in an interview.
He estimated the field he was standing in would produce 1,500-2,000 pounds of sunflower seeds, compared to a nearby canola field that produced 25 bushels per acre. The canola field might produce about $250 per acre, but the sunflowers could bring $400.
“Economically, this crop’s going to do pretty good this year,” said Park.
Sunflowers survive drought because they send roots deep into the soil after moisture, double the metre or so that a canola plant’s roots may reach.
John Heard of Manitoba Agriculture said most sunflower growers are happy they had one crop that worked out well.
“Crops grew better this summer than we expected for the amount of rainfall we had,” said Heard.
Like wheat, sunflowers don’t need a lot of moisture to produce a good crop. Corn and soybean crops demand 500 millimetres of moisture to produce a good crop, but wheat and sunflowers can do it on 360 mm. With sunflowers able to tap deep into subsoil moisture, a good crop is likely in a bad year.
But he warned farmers to be aware of sunflowers’ Achilles’ heel: It can dig deep for moisture, but can lose it quickly through the leaves up top. As fast as sunflowers suck up moisture, they can exhale it in hot and dry air.
Heard said some sunflower crops wilted and weakened because they could not keep up with moisture losses to the air, even though they still had moisture around their roots.
“We often think of sunflowers as good water users but with high air temperatures, they’re not necessarily efficient water users,” said Heard.
“Some other crops (such as corn) seem to be better able to turn off the tap.”
Another danger with sunflowers is that they will rob the soil of water for next year’s crop. The moisture that saved this year’s sunflowers won’t be there for next spring’s crop.
Park said farmers in dry areas will probably try to seed this year’s sunflower fields first next spring to capture the benefit of any winter precipitation.
Dry conditions next summer would hurt crops that follow sunflowers, but a prudent farmer can only plan for normal conditions and hope the weather turns out.
“It’s got to rain sometime, doesn’t it?” said Park.
