Let it snow! P.E.I. farmers say crops need shelter from winter weather

Jan 05, 2017

The inconsistent winter weather on P.E.I. this year is causing some concern for farmers who say more snow is needed to prevent winter kill.

"The nice thing is to get...a foot or so of snow on top of the ground," said dairy farmer Dannie MacKinnon of Sandy Rae Farms near Brooklyn. "If we keep getting the cycles of freeze thaw, freeze thaw we could see a round of winter kill again this year."

MacKinnon said weather can be particularly hard on perennial crops like the grasses and clover that he grows to feed his cows. The loss of one crop to winter kill makes it hard to catch up and have enough feed for the next winter.

"When you plant the stuff, it's very expensive stuff to establish and you'd like to get three to five years out of it," he said.

"Really nobody that has perennial crops likes to see this here up and down weather."

MacKinnon said he currently has some fields filled with ice. He said he isn't worried about that yet, but if it sticks around, it could become a problem.

"You get the ice situation where you get a thaw and the snow turns to ice and then it freezes again so that smothers the plant," he said

"And then you will get situations like we had a couple of years ago...where it snowed heavily in December and then we had a major thaw in January that soaked the soil and then it went to -20 C for a week."

MacKinnon said that situation was worse than ice cover because the soil, soaked in water, expanded and broke the roots off some deep-rooted crops like alfalfa.

Mary Robinson, president of the P.E.I. Federation of Agricultural, says she hasn't heard many complaints about ice yet, but farmers are always adapting to winter conditions.

"With icy fields and bare fields we have exposed land…so what we want to see is a nice decent amount of snow cover and things tucked away until spring comes."

Bad for animals too

Variable weather is also hard on farm animals, said MacKinnon.

"You'll get a plus eight like we got last week and they...take the sweat and then you know the next morning it's minus eight, they get chilled and they're the same as human beings…it weakens their immune system and there you go you have sick animals."

MacKinnon said some farmers are turning to annual crops like oats and peas to offset their silage because of winter kill and possible droughts in the summer. As for him, he said he is just hoping for more snow.

Source: CBC

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