For Alex Boersch of Abtshof Farms near Elie, the 2025 season has felt like a battle on two fronts. After seeding in spring, heavy rainfall quickly drowned out crops, forcing the family to reseed roughly 500 acres. What followed was nearly two months of severe drought, leaving plants struggling to recover. Then, just as harvest was set to begin, the skies opened again.
“We got four and a half inches,” Boersch notes.
The rain hit nearly all of the family’s farmland, stretching in a band from east of Portage la Prairie through Oakville and into Elie. Within hours, the La Salle River rose more than eight feet, backing up into ditches and spilling across fields.
“The river level went up by over eight feet in less than 12 hours,” Boersch says. “When the crop sits in water, the seeds start to germinate, and if you’re lucky and can still harvest it, then it all goes for feed because it sprouts and you can’t sell it for milling oats or milling wheat.”
Sprouting, mold, and lost quality
The main concern now is crop quality. Wheat, barley, oats, soybeans, corn, peas, and canola make up the farm’s production. If the water lingers, seeds can sprout or mold before harvest, cutting value dramatically.
“It’s pretty tough to sell it then for anything other than feed,” Boersch adds.
Even if harvesting is possible, wet conditions force machinery to leave deep ruts that will need to be repaired in the fall.
Turning to grain dryers
To salvage the crop, the family relies on a grain dryer, which allows them to harvest at higher moisture levels than normally accepted at elevators or mills. Using propane or natural gas, the dryer reduces the risk of spoilage in storage.
“You can harvest it three, four, five percent higher moisture than what’s actually allowed,” Boersch explains. “But first you have to be able to actually harvest it, and then second, if you have to dry it, it costs quite a bit of money to do that.”
He continues, “Especially since Wab Kinew is planning on raising gas prices by 50 per cent.”
Years of extremes
This season isn’t the first time the farm has been hit by back-to-back extremes. Flooding also struck in 2022 and 2023. Last year, the family didn’t finish seeding until June 26 and even resorted to aerial seeding in places where fields were too wet.
“It’s just been a frustrating few years here because we’ve been yo-yoing between drought and way too wet,” Boersch says.
Despite the setbacks, the farm continues to manage about 5,000 acres across multiple locations east of Portage la Prairie. But with unpredictable rains carving swaths across southern Manitoba, there is little certainty about what the next season will bring.