A grim reality began to settle over parts of southeastern Saskatchewan and southwestern Manitoba this week.
Farmers such as Howard Taylor were confronting the fact that they won’t seed a crop this year. Their fields remain too wet to work.
“I can hardly even spray,” said Taylor, who farms with his brother near Carievale, Sask. “I sprayed an 80-acre field (on Sunday) and there were 23 sloughs.”
The Taylors had 2,000 acres to seed this spring. That land will now become summerfallow, costing the Taylors at least $10 per acre to maintain throughout the summer and fall.
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In southwestern Manitoba, clear weather prevailed last week, giving farmers a chance to seed more land. But there are still people who will not get a kernel into the ground, said John Hollinger, provincial agricultural representative at Souris, Man.
“The only thing that keeps guys going now is having crop insurance up to June 25 for most crops,” said Hollinger on Monday.
“You don’t get rich off crop insurance, but you hopefully get your costs back.”
Hollinger said his area has had 250 millimetres of rain since early May. That was on top of the moisture that accumulated last summer and fall. A farmer in the Souris area last week reported moss growing six mm thick in his field.
As much as one million acres may go unseeded in Manitoba this year. Manitoba Agriculture did not have an updated tally as of June 21.
Farmers in Saskatchewan also made some planting progress last week but the province’s agriculture department was reluctant to say how much land will remain unseeded.
“Getting a handle on that has become very difficult,” said David Boehm, director of Saskatchewan Agriculture’s statistics branch. “At this point, we’re probably not accurately capturing the situation.”
Farmers unable to seed cereals or oilseeds because of the soggy soils might not report land as unseeded acreage if they shifted its use to summerfallow or greenfeed.
Boehm said a clearer picture of the damage caused by wet weather should emerge once farmers start filing their crop insurance claims.
Due to the lateness of seeding, farmers will be pinning their hopes on a long fall and a late arrival of frost. Many of the crops seeded now will be harvested in late September and early October.
Those crops will be in a “high risk situation” until harvested, said Scott Day, provincial ag rep at Boissevain, Man.
