Farms.com Home   Ag Industry News

Ont. growers wrapping up soybean harvest

Ont. growers wrapping up soybean harvest

Poor weather slowed down progress for days

By Diego Flammini
Staff Writer
Farms.com

Mother Nature may cooperate with Ontario growers to give them a window to combine their grain.

Field conditions could improve after long stretches of wet weather and cool conditions.

In Middlesex County, for example, temperatures are hovering around 8 C with light showers, the Weather Network says. The next seven days will bring temperatures between 7 and 9 C with chances of  precipitation ranging from 20 per cent to 70 per cent.

Growers aren’t wasting any time using the good weather to their advantage.

“I just finished soybean harvest and will be starting corn soon,” Ann Lamont, a cash crop producer from Middlesex County, told Farms.com. “The weather hasn’t been too kind to us lately, so we’ve got to do as much as we can.”

Lamont is happy with how her beans looked during harvest. She estimates her yield is somewhere “in the mid-60s” bushels per acre.

Farmers in Kawartha Lakes are also making use of favourable harvest conditions.

“We finished soybean harvest a few days ago,” Ed Lewis told Farms.com. “We don’t have all the paperwork in yet, but I would guess we harvested about 40 bushels per acre.

“The weather always plays a factor because you never know what you’re going to get. I think we would’ve liked to see larger yields but sometimes that’s out of your control.”

The temperature in Kawartha Lakes is around 6 C, the Weather Network says. Temperatures will range between 4 and 6 C for the next week.

Growers are happy to see the change in weather.

“We’d be out harvesting for a day, but then we’d get rained out for two or three after that,” Doug Virtue, a cash crop farmer from Bruce County, told Farms.com. “You go through that cycle two or three times and it starts to get very frustrating.”

He has finished about 90 per cent done of his soybean harvest, he said.

Virtue also produces winter wheat, so the recent rains have helped that crop, he added.

“We finished planting the crop at the end of last week, so the moisture was helpful,” he said. “I’ll have to check the field soon to see if any of the crop has emerged.”


Trending Video

Season 6, Episode 4: Technology in the Swine Industry

Video: Season 6, Episode 4: Technology in the Swine Industry

New equipment alone won’t solve every challenge in swine production. The real value comes when technologies and systems work together to improve efficiency. In this episode, three guests share their perspectives on how to make technology work smarter, not harder, and what producers should consider when making future decisions.First, Erin Brenneman and Jeremy Robertson of Brenneman Pork discuss the complexities of integrating different technologies, opportunities for overlapping data, and how success ultimately comes down to three essentials: air, water, and feed. You can also watch their full presentation from this year’s Iowa Swine Day