By Gina Moralez
It’s been a summer to remember for farmers across Ontario.
Dry planting, timely rains and months of warm, humid weather, have some farmers realistically expecting record-setting yields come harvest time.
“A lot can happen between now and harvest. I hope we see maturity of the corn here in the next two weeks, then we’ll need another three to four weeks for it to dry down,” says Blyth-area farmer, Peter Heinrich. “But, I think, there will be some fields that will be breaking records, yes.”
Aside from recent hail storms ruining some farmer’s crops, the weather has been almost perfect for growing anything, but especially corn and soybeans. The two main crops grown by Ontario farmers.
“It’s always been warm. We’ve never really had a cold spell, so it never really slowed down which we like to see. Especially this fall, energy costs are going to be high and this carbon tax business adds on top of that. So, drying is a huge expense, so the drier we can get the corn at harvest, the more money in our pockets,” says Heinrich.
The annual Great Ontario Yield Tour by Farms.Com experts Moe Agostino and Abhinesh Gopal, predicts Ontario corn yields to reach 191 bushels per acre, beating the 2018 record of 183 bushels per acre. Soybeans are expected to just miss records, hitting 51.7 bushels per acre, just below last year’s 53 bushels per acre.
But, the ever precautious agriculture community isn’t counting the kernels before their combined.
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