The headline on our story was ominous: “It’s going to keep raining; harvest when you can.”
That story was on producer.com early on Aug. 8, and readers poured onto it like the blistering rain some of us have seen over the past 24 hours (as I write on Monday afternoon).
Three more days of potential rain were predicted for my part of the province in central Saskatchewan. The Regina, Brandon and Dauphin areas were expected to be hit hard, but Winnipeg was to have it a little easier. The Lethbridge and Red Deer areas and the Peace Country were expected to escape the worst of it.
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Our story by Managing Editor Michael Raine quoted weather guru Drew Lerner predicting the harvest period will likely be interrupted by more rain.
Right now, farmers are looking at desiccation of lentils and peas, applying pre-harvest glyphosate, haying and retrieving bales and looking at the beginning of harvest, all of which could be affected by the nasty weather.
It’s vexing because many farmers are looking at a great crop this year, perhaps the second biggest on record. We thought we had captured the mercurial nature of this summer’s weather — compared to last year’s drought-like conditions in some areas — with our graphic on page 15 of this issue by Art Director Michelle Houlden. Tornadoes, high temperatures, big rainfalls and hail have besieged the Prairies.
We’ve also featured weather stories in this edition on pages 4, 5, 6 and 11. There is a consensus that the rain will hit this year’s record lentil crop hard.
Our markets section features a story by Dave Sims of Commodity News Service Canada that notes this lentil crop is about 5.8 million acres. In Saskatchewan, lentils could suffer a 10 to 15 percent reduction due to the weather. As of July 25, 62 percent of Saskatchewan’s lentils were in either excellent or good condition, but that is likely to change in the next crop report.
At the bottom of this page, columnist Kevin Hursh says the lentil crop will be a disaster for a lot of growers.
The Western Producer’s newsroom will report on the effects of the recent rain and other weather developments, as farmers try to bring in their crops amidst the sop. Check us out next week and online at producer.com for further developments.
