Sunflowers looking healthy but still behind schedule

Jul 27, 2022

Manitoba's sunflower crop is looking good, although it is still behind schedule.

Morgan Cott is an Agronomy Extension Specialist with the Manitoba Crop Alliance (MCA).

"The sunflower crop is looking really healthy," she said. "I'm really excited for what we're going to see for yields this year, just because conditions have been so great for sunflowers. I would love to see them blooming by now but we're not quite there. There's some buds that are developing but definitely no full blooms emerging, no yellow and there's still some of the crop that's quite behind and little."

Cott commented on the recent weather.

"For corn and sunflower, they're loving every moment of the weather that we've been getting. Some areas have obviously gotten a lot more water than they can stand, and corn and sunflowers don't like having wet feet, but they can tolerate the moisture more and since we've been having such heat and such sunshine, they're really going to be moving a lot of those nutrients around. Generally, I think it's okay but I don't want to see standing water of course."

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Video: Learning to Wrench From Dad the Hard Way

Harvest is a week out and the farm picked this week to fall apart. The truck needs a battery, the barn curtain's got a problem, and the corn and beans are telling us we're out of time to get it all fixed.

So it's a full day of wrenching. Tork supervises while I get the truck back running, then we're out at the hog barn where one rusted up part has the whole curtain system hung up. Ladder work, cable work, and a little dad-and-son disagreement about the right way to do it. We close it out walking the fields, shelling beans and checking corn, because whether everything's fixed or not, harvest starts when harvest starts.

Chapters: 00:00 Everything breaks the week before harvest 01:00 Tork supervises while I fix the truck 12:30 Out to the barn to find the curtain problem 14:30 One rusty part hung up the whole curtain 20:00 Running the curtain cable from the ladder 24:00 Walking the beans and corn before harvest 26:30 Wrapping up

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