Farmers in the wettest areas of the province are assessing crop damage and it’s not looking good.
Jim Wickett farms about 20 kilometres southeast of Rosetown. He says his area has received about 12 inches of rain since July 25th—not to mention all of the precipitation before that.
Wickett says more and more lentils crops are being written off to a combination of disease, moisture stress and flooding in low-lying areas.
“In the Rosetown area, I would say maybe 20 per cent of fields that are seeded to lentils would be over five bushels to the acre.
The ones that are will not be very good. There are thousands and thousands of acres being written off by Crop Insurance every single day.”
Wickett says cereal crops have been moving backward as well.
“At one time (earlier this year), I would have said they would have been in the top five cereal crops I have ever grown.
But there is so much down and there is water hiding everywhere. When you drive around, the fields literally stink of rotting crops. It’s not a good situation around Rosetown right now.”
Source : CKRM