Severe winds, 100 millimetre rains and tornadoes have given July more than enough extreme weather to flatten and lodge crops across the Prairies.
Pam Deroquigny, a cereal specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, said crop lodging seems to be more prevalent this summer.
“The last crop report that came out, it definitely is something being reported in most regions of the province.”
Harvey Chorney, who farms near East Selkirk, Man., said July rain and wind flattened areas of his fields, but he’s not overly concerned.
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Like many producers in eastern and central Manitoba, Chorney attaches a flex header to his combine to harvest soybeans.
He said flex headers are also useful for picking up flattened cereal crops.
“The flex headers and the ability to float on the ground, they can cut way closer than you ever could with a swather,” said Chorney, who is a vice-president with the Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute.
“So there’s the advantage of picking up a lodged crop better than you would (with a swather).”
Saskatchewan farmers may also be dealing with flattened crops after a storm dumped 50 to 100 mm of rain across much of the province in late July.
Bill Gehl, who farms near Regina, drove between Saskatoon and Regina just before the August long weekend.
He said the storm knocked down crops, but the situation isn’t severe.
“On the ride home (from Saskatoon) there was a lot more canola that was significantly laid over, more so than the cereal crops,” said Gehl, chair of the Saskatchewan Wheat Development Commission.
“But it’s not to the point where it’s driven into the ground…. I don’t think it (lodging) is going to be a huge problem in the Regina area.”
Gehl said his neighbour’s lentil crop withstood more than 100 mm of driving rain, and it’s still standing upright.
Allen Kuhlmann, who farms near Vanguard, Sask., said lodging isn’t an issue around his farm.
“There is water in standing crop, but as far as knocking it down, there (wasn’t) a whole lot of that happening,” he said.
“In southwest Saskatchewan, if we got our crops to lodge we would be pretty happy. That would mean they were pretty good.”
Farmers wouldn’t be too concerned even if they had flattened crops because many of them have installed lifters on headers to help harvest low-lying crops.
“There are so many pulses grown in the area, or have been grown the last few years, a lot of people have the equipment now,” Gehl said.
“It will allow us to get the majority of the crop.”
Deroquigny said lodging at this time of year can compromise grain quality because the microclimate within matted crop is more humid.
“When you have lodged areas of the field, often those areas aren’t maturing at the same rate as the crop that’s standing,” she said.
“Or (it could) lead to pre-harvest sprouting because there is that higher humidity in that lodged area of the field.”
The severe rain may have caused some lodging in Saskatchewan and arrived too late in July to benefit many crops, but the province desperately needed moisture.
Kuhlmann said the rain should provide a boost for later seeded crops and replenish subsoil moisture.
“There’s lots of durum wheat around that it’s going to help fill,” he said.
“So there are some short-term and long-term benefits.”
