Too much rain delays growing season

By Renee Rodgers

GRAFTON, On. (05/05/11) Clare Peck is a farmer in Northumberland County. Like many local farmers he hasn't been able to begin planting his crops this year because the soil on his field is too wet. Photo by Mark Venema

“Rain, rain, go away” is the tune farmers like Lloyd Crowe of Reynolds Farms have been singing a lot this spring.

The wet weather conditions in the past couple of weeks have kept him and many other local farmers from fertilizing their land and planting their crops, something they say should have been done by now.

Crowe grows corn, soybeans and wheat at his Prince Edward County farm. He said he usually plants his corn around the last week in April or the first week in May. He has yet to start this year, however, because the ground is too wet.

“You can’t even walk on the fields right now,” he said.

Crowe, like many other farmers in the area, is anxious to get his crops in the ground as soon as possible – and for good reason.

“The earlier the crop is planted, it tends to be a better yielding crop,” he said.  “So by every day it’s delayed you’re losing a few bushels a day of yield.”

Less yield means less profit, so with each day that goes by, Crowe feels a little more uneasy.

“When you farm, you have to plant the crop to harvest,” he said. “And if you don’t get nothing planted you get no money.”

Bette Jean Crews is the president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture. For the past 40 years she’s been helping her husband run their Murray Ward family farm. She said wet soil is not just a concern locally. Farmers all over Ontario are experiencing this problem, and many are worried about the fate of their crops.

Crews said she has noticed a general shift in weather patterns in the past few years. Her farm has seen more wind and rain lately than in the past. In fact, a recent windstorm blew the front off her family’s produce stand, something that’s never happened before.

Crews believes there needs to be more of a partnership between farmers and the Canadian government to ensure farmers are protected against changing weather conditions.

“The government needs to help us better insure ourselves against those unforeseen things,” she said. “It’s hard when we don’t know what’s going on with our crops from one day to the next.”

Just ask Clare Peck, a Northumberland County farmer, who said wet soil is making it difficult for him to begin planting crops.

Peck, who raises beef cattle and grows oats, barley and hay on his 600-acre farm, said times of bad weather can be stressful for farmers.

“There’s a lot of pressure a farmer goes through to make things work,” he said. “It’s not just a nine-to-five job. There are a lot of other things that come into play – Mother Nature being number one.”

Dale Ketcheson of Moira View Farms in Roslin has similar concerns. Ketcheson said he normally starts planting corn around May 1 but predicts he’ll start about a week late this year. In the meantime, he’s been making sure everything’s ready to go for when the right weather does arrive. His main concern, he said, is that if the delay in planting crops persists, it will likely cause a holdup in the harvest.

“We could catch up if we have a good summer but it will delay a little bit of the yield,” he said.

Ketcheson is keeping a close eye on his fields but he said he’s still optimistic.

“It’s kind of a little bit frustrating but I’m not going to get worried about it yet,” he said. “If we aren’t going until next week then it will start to be a worry.”

Mark Slack of Slack Family Farms in Tweed says the he hasn’t been able to get out on his field since last fall. Everything is still too muddy.

“We’re easily three weeks behind,” he said.

Slack runs a livestock operation and also grows corn and soybeans on his 200-acre farm.

Like other farmers, Slack ‘s biggest concern is decreased yields due to a delay in sowing seeds. While this makes him anxious to get out planting, he understands patience is key.

“It would be nice to be on the land and have more done than we have right now,” he said. “But the danger is when things are late you get impatient and you do things incorrectly. Our theory is if we have to wait, we have to wait. But we still want to do things right. We’ll wait until the land is completely ready before we go on and we’ll try to ignore the emotion that wants you to, you know, drive ahead full speed.”

Slack said he hopes to be on the land by the end of the week, provided it doesn’t rain again.

In the meantime, local farmers will keep their fingers crossed for good weather.

“We’re ready to go,” Crowe said, echoing the sentiments of most other farmers in the area. “We’re just waiting for the sun to shine and the warm winds to blow.”