Every farm in the saturation zone across eastern Saskatchewan through central Manitoba is facing unique problems coping with flooded fields, broken roads, inaccessible crops and stranded livestock. Here are three accounts of Manitoba farms and how they are weathering the crisis.
“We hope it doesn’t get into the yard,” said Vajdik, who farms land near the Assiniboine River, naming one modest wish with this flooding that has washed over and saturated about 700 of his 4,700 acres.
“We’ve been told to consider moving the equipment because the water’s getting too high.”
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For the crops, he can’t wish for zero damage, because some are already drowned and many show signs of severe waterlogging.
Some land lies under sheets of water. Hundreds of acres more aren’t under water, but are completely saturated and they need a chance for the moisture to move down and the surface to dry off so that the crops’ roots can breathe again.
“The crops don’t want any more water. Anything more and there’s real yield damage.”
Vajdik said he’s luckier than many farmers because he has acres spread for 30 kilometres, with some in better shape. He’s also seeing the benefits of one technology he has embraced: controlled traffic farming.
That involves always driving machinery down the same wheel tracks in the field and is offering a firmer base for his sprayer to drive on, but he admits he has already gotten his sprayer stuck once while trying to hit the weeds before the crop canopies close.
For most farmers from southwestern Manitoba to eastern Saskatchewan, water has pooled in fields then rushed off uncontrolled once it gets high enough, creating a cascade effect for downstream farmers.
“If you don’t have tile drainage, if you don’t have proper ditches, that is only going to result in surface runoff, which is very quick,” said Vajdik.
“That is how you get extreme surges of water.”
Much of Vajdik’s crop can be saved with dry weather and good conditions.
“We need a lot more wind and airflow through the crop,” said Vajdik.
Andy Barclay farms along the Souris River.
“We were just getting things cleaned up (from the 2011 floods), then this hits,” said Barclay, who only managed to seed half his 2,700 acres and believes 30 percent of what he managed to seed is now dead.
“It’s been pretty frustrating.”That local area is pockmarked with potholes and those have spread wide and joined.
“The fields are small lakes.”That’s what five to seven inches during a weekend does to a usually-productive farm.
Barclay now expects to be managing a crop that has weed problems, disease pressures and tough patches to take machinery near.
And he’ll be spending quality time working with insurance forms.
“It’s definitely going to be a big unseeded acreage claim and probably a crop insurance claim, unless there’s some sort of miracle weather.”
With the eternal optimism of the Prairie farmer for next year, Barclay says he’s already banking his hopes on fall seeding.
“We really hope we can get some winter wheat in.”
That would use up some soil moisture and alleviate some of the worries about farming the fields next spring if it’s wet again.
“What we had seeded, it was starting to look good. Now it isn’t” he said.
The Artz family is living a divided existence, cloven by flooding fields, ruined roads, closed bridges and stranded cattle.
It’s something Ted and his son have learned to cope with in their area.
“He was the last one over (the local bridge over Gainsborough Creek before it became impassible.) He’s been looking after the cattle on the south side and I’ve been looking after them on the north side.”
Those kinds of situations are common in the Pierson, Manitoba area, which is just east of the Saskatchewan border.
One of Artz’s neighbors has his bulls on one side of the creek and his cows on the other “and it’s turnout time.” Those cows and bulls won’t be getting together for a while.
Local people were asked to stay off local roads and bridges while floodwaters surged down creeks and ditches and while the local volunteer fire department, the Manitoba Hydro crews and volunteer emergency prescription drug crews struggled to keep up with a infrastructure system close to the breakdown point.
Fortunately the power stayed on, volunteers were able to get to Melita to refill stranded people’s prescriptions and pieces of roads and bridges were preserved.
Artz said his own cattle are on higher ground and have a little bit of pasture around them, so they’re OK for now. But when the waters drop he’ll be racing to fix fencelines before the animals go wandering.
But the real worry for local cattle producers is what happens come fall.
“Feed is going to be the real issue,” said Artz.
But with reports of people in local towns and hamlets losing their homes to flooding, Artz said he feels lucky and is trying to be philosophical.
He might have to sell cows or heifers to match his livestock to his feed supplies, but he isn’t homeless “and you have to be grateful for that, and you feel so sorry for the people who are.”
