Crop yields throughout southern Alberta were down following a hot, dry summer but the issue has been exacerbated by cold, wet weather that has halted the harvesting effort.
“It’s been a little trying,” explained Ian Donovan who farms southeast of Calgary near Mossleigh. “I think the last day we combined was September 11 and we’ve been parked ever since.”
“You get a day like today where there’s a little sunshine and you get a little optimistic then you get evening showers. You need it dry to get the crop off.”
Donovan says the postponed harvest can have a devastating effect on a farmer’s bottom line.
"You go from a number one wheat that, say, is worth $7.50 to all this stuff that sprouts or goes bad that drops down to $5.50 or $6 a bushel. All of a sudden if you have a two dollar bushel difference on a 40 bushel crop that’s $80 an acre. Those numbers add up quickly. On 200 acres, that’s $16,000 that you can be out of profit.”
“It weighs on you a little bit. You might have $200,000 or $300,000 worth of crop still sitting out in the field and you can’t get to it.”
One of Donovan’s neighbours attempted to try harvesting some wheat on Monday but his efforts proved premature. “Wheat needs to be about 14.5 (per cent) to be dry and it was 32 per cent moisture. It’s about three per cent a day if you had a nice day to keep dropping. We need about three or four good days of this with a nice wind and the sun out.”
With files from CTV’s Kevin Green
