Gerald Pilger: No canola for 2009?

Gerald Pilger farms near Ohaton, Alta., and is a regular contributor to Grainews. It has been a terrible spring on his farm, with repeated frosts and no rain. Here is his crop update from this morning. Any other farmers who want to share their crop situation, feel free to email me or post a comment on this blog.

Gerald writes:

Frost and drought have severely damaged canola crops in central Alberta. Even wheat and barley show damage and are way behind. This morning (June 9) it was minus 3 C at our farm and that was the fourth night in a row of frost with temperatures as low as minus 5 reported in the area. (Our covered tomatoes and begonias even froze.) This is on top of lots of nights of frost in May and basically no rainfall since the snow went. Furthermore, we were going into the season with next to no subsurface moisture. In our fields, the canola plants that have survived the frosts and drought to this point are flat on the ground today and only time will tell if any survive. The date, continued cold, and especially lack of moisture make reseeding as risky, if not more so, than leaving the canola that is left and praying for a miracle.

I bought back my fall canola delivery contracts just after the elevator opened this morning and was the fourth person to do so today.

We wrote off our hay fields last week. The only green growth at all was along tree lines and dry slough bottoms. Cattle guys in east Alberta are desperate. This year makes 2002 look like a great year as far as the cattle guys are concerned (and even the grain crops at this time of the year were much better in 2002 than the are this spring.)

Very little has been sprayed in the Camrose area except a few fields of peas and early Roundup applications on RR canola. Edge applied to a canola research plot we are hosting on our farm did not control the weeds that managed to germinate — likely because of the cold soil tempertures. The researcher then applied a full rate of Poast and it has had little effect on the wild oats and volunteer barley. The weeds are so hardened off it is debateable how effective herbicides will be, even if one chose to spray, given the cold temperture and lack of moisture. Two local chem reps I spoke with recommended waiting until there is no more risk of frost and we receive rain, but niether of these conditions are likely in the short term. Furthermore,  I am very worried about the application of any product with any residual action given the drought. The lack of soil moisture could lead to carryover next year. And really, there are not enough weeds in many fields to justify spraying at this time. It is a real Catch 22.

However, ever optimistic farmers now looking to 2010 crops and the fact their fertilizer requirements are going to be way down.