For the week of June 17th – 24th
We finally had a few days of good weather which allowed us to finish our in-crop herbicide and Moddus (growth regulator) applications. This has been one of the more difficult herbicide seasons with all the weather we have had – cold, wind and rain. Thankfully we managed to finish and now we can prepare for fungicide season.
Storm season is now officially upon us – we had some wild weather over the weekend! Saturday we had a storm system form over our north land – and dropped between 10mm on our farthest north to 48mm on the land straight east of Lake Lenore – most of which came in less than half an hour. Along with the rain we also had some hail which was more confined to the area that had the higher rainfall.
On Sunday we had another day of wild weather, this time we had tornado warnings, even met up with professional storm chasers (never a good thing when they are in your immediate area!). This one brought some more severe damage, with hail across more of our north land, and an additional 10mm on the higher rainfall areas the day previous, and 24-36mm farther north. Total rainfall up north was 34-56mm. The hail did more damage to our canola fields than cereal fields. The hail stones were smaller which helped limit the damage. Thankfully the canola is still at an early enough stage that it should limit the overall damage. The downside is that it will push the crop back another week or two – coupled with the already late crop due to the cool/cold conditions we have had, it will put some pressure on the back end of this crop year – will definitely need a later than normal end of season “F” cold overnight low (don’t want to say the word…).
Overall the crop conditions are quite satisfactory – cereals look strong, lots of growth. With ample moisture to date this has also increased tillering – and that could lead to lodging later this summer if we get stronger storms. We ended up applying growth regulator to all our cereals except the south (where the crop was under more moisture stress earlier on – didn’t want to apply to a crop under stress). In 2022 there was a night and day difference between what we sprayed and did not spray. Not only did it help with harvest – what was sprayed yielded significantly higher than what was not. When the plants lodge early on, especially prior to filling, it has a huge impact on yield. If the crop is close to maturity, it doesn’t have as big an impact to yield, but still has a big impact on harvestability. Harvesting a crop that is standing or has a “lean” is much easier to do than a crop that is laying flat on the ground. Lodged crop also tends to have higher incidence of disease.
This next week looks to be cooler with chances of higher rainfall amounts by the end of the week. With the prolonged dry condition’s we have been experiencing the past couple of years it is hard to turn down more moisture, you just never know when the tap is going to turn off. On our north land we are getting close to the stage of hoping the tap will turn off, for a few weeks at least…
