This year’s seemingly endless stretch of lousy weather has disrupted more than harvest for some farmers.
It has also put a major crimp in seeding plans for those who were planning to put in winter wheat this fall.
“It just wasn’t an option this year,” said Lesley McCallum, who has abandoned plans to seed the winter cereal this year.
This will mark only the second time in the last 20 years that the McCallums haven’t grown winter wheat on their Aylsham, Sask., farm.
They typically seed their winter wheat into canola stubble and aim to have it in the ground by about Sept. 5. This year their canola was still in the field as of Sept. 27.
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It’s been much the same for would-be winter wheat growers across the Prairies, particularly in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, as the fields they would normally use to seed their crop remained unharvested well into September.
“With the cold, wet summer, crops didn’t mature so they don’t have any suitable fields to put the winter in,” said Bob Linnell, executive manager of Winter Cereals Canada.
The later-then-usual harvest of winter wheat has also squeezed seed supplies.
He expects the area seeded to winter wheat will drop dramatically from last year’s 700,000 acres.
“Things were increasing rather rapidly and we were thinking in the 900,000 to one million acre range for this year, but my feeling is we’ll be quite lucky if we get to the 350,000-400,000 acre range,” he said.
“It will be a setback for the industry.”
Canadian Wheat Board agrologist Mike Grenier said that while there will certainly be a significant decline in acreage, the marketing agency remains confident that farmers won’t abandon the crop over the longer term.
“There has been an upward trend since the mid-90s,” he said. “We’ve seen a couple of blips and I’m expecting that’s going to be the case this time. It’s probably going to be a fairly hard drop but I think it will bounce back next fall.”
The deadline for crop insurance coverage for fall-seeded crops, including winter wheat, fall rye and winter triticale, was Sept. 20 in Manitoba and Sept. 25 in Saskatchewan, the two provinces most affected by the inclement weather.
For winter wheat, it’s generally recommended that seed be in the ground by mid-August in the northern third of the grain belt and by mid-September in the southern two-thirds.
Linnell said it’s not impossible to get a decent crop after seeding in late September, but it’s definitely a risky proposition.
“The chance of survival gets less as the days go by,” he said.
The key is to have a solid establishment of 25-30 plants per sq. foot in the two to three leaf stages or even the one tiller stage. Phosphorus at seeding time is crucial to solid rooting and the development of a healthy crown.
“There may be some good days ahead, so you could stick it in the ground, shallow-seeded, put phosphorus on, and it may turn out pretty well,” he said. “It’s unusual but it can happen.”
McCallum said she doesn’t see much point in seeding after about Sept. 10 on her northern grain belt farm.
A late-seeded crop won’t emerge as quickly in the spring and will be less able to compete with weeds, it won’t yield as high and it won’t mature as early.
“So if you do that, you basically lose the advantages of winter wheat,” she said.
