FARM Crop failures: North Central Saskatchewan

[Double_A]

Just been back a few days from two weeks in Alberta & Saskatchewan Canada.

Crops in North Central Saskatchewan are bad, rain rain rain. My uncle planted only two of six quarter sections he has. In a very late night talk he said he'd only gotten decent crops off in two of the last six years.

In some areas most farmers were not able to seed at all, they couldn't get onto the field due to rain. Those who did have stunted growth & small wheat heads.

Further south you go crop are fair. Canadian Government has the largest farm aid program in their history going on. (IIRC $134 million CND I guess that's big up there?)

Crops in Alberta farming areas (East & South of Calgary) I saw looked good.

Went to a local auction of a farmer who had passed on. Maybe 250 people showed up. (Tractors, Combines, Swathers, Seeders, sprayers, bailers all up for sale.) What struck me was the age of the farmers, they are all old men! Only a couple guys were under 50 yrs.

Will post some pictures when I sort through the roughly 200 I took.

 

[duchess47]

Thanks for the first hand report. It's hard to know what to believe re crops from the news, it runs from starvation tomorrow to surpluses.

 

[Laurane]

You didn't stop in when you were in Alberta??? - you could have waved!!!

The crops around us in central Alberta are mainly great......some not quite ripe yet because of all the rain and little sun, but tall and headed out. My brother in law who farms 10,000 acres in southwestern Sask has his peas in already and most of his lentils, but not his barley.....his barley goes malting and it has to be timed just right. We went to Sask twice in a month and the further east we went to the AB/SK border, we noticed there were crops where there usually weren't any - usually in poorer soil. With all the rain, some farmers have more crops in, but if we don't get some sunshine for a week in a row, there will be some losses. No hail yet, but tis the season.

Already we had frost two nights ago on the roof, but the garden is still good and some last raspberries picked yesterday......root crops are great.

That is a bit surprising that SE AB is doing so well, as the flooding in spring and the washout of the TransCanada highways looked like it would be too late to get anything in the ground. At least they won't have to irrigate as much.

You are right about the Auctions - mostly old men farming now - the younger ones cannot afford it......160 acres down the road with a barley crop on Canada #1 soil is selling for $542,000 without any buildings. Our daughter is on the lookout for 1/4 section so they can share crop/lease oil well/rent out a used mobile (that should almost pay for something around $350k, but there is nothing on the market). So older men are the only ones able to afford to buy nowadays.

Glad you enjoyed your trip. Laurane

 

[Double_A]

Lentils ... That reminded me a close family friend is growing lentils, chickpeas, flaxseed and a few other things but that's south of Moose Jaw, I wonder how things are there?

Anyway I went up Crescent and waved over Calgary, maybe you missed it?