The owner of Prairie Sky Crop Solutions south of Niverville says there will be damage to crops in the area from Thursday night's rain event.
Reg Friesen says that though an awful lot of rain fell, the storm was very localized. For example, he says areas south of St. Pierre received about an inch of rain, while up near St. Adolphe and Ile des Chenes, it rained only about half an inch. However, areas in between received a lot more. Friesen says his gauge south of Niverville showed three inches, and he knows that five inches fell south of Tourond.
"It's a localized area, but there was a lot of water; all of our drainage canals are full, all of our road ditches are full, right in this area," he explains. "It's quite something."
Friesen says a lot of wheat and canola has already been harvested in the southeast. However, on Friday morning, he saw swaths of canola lying in water.
"It's never good when crops are submerged in water. After they are submerged in water, they are probably junk," he explains. "But that's going to be just extreme low areas and bottoms of ditches right now, if the water drains off relatively quickly."
Friesen says the canola crop probably took the biggest hit from this storm. He notes that because canola is an oilseed, it can handle a little bit of dampness but not being submerged. As for wheat, he says it will get bleached, which is not a good thing. With some decent weather, though, he is hopeful that the damage to cereals can be mitigated.
Friesen says some of the unharvested wheat is standing in water, but thankfully, the fields he saw were not in swath. And he notes that because this was such a localized rain event, the water levels will probably recede fairly quickly.
"But it's hard to say because Steinbach just got hammered and all of that water comes right through us, right through where the water was dropped over here," he says.
As for some of the longer-season crops, Friesen says we are probably about two weeks away from the start of the soybean harvest. He explains that when soybeans are harvested, the combine header will shave the ground, and if the ground is muddy, that mud pushes into the header, making it a real challenge. For that reason, he says a rainfall like this is better today than two weeks from now.
"Rain is always a good thing for farmers, but three inches or four inches, five inches dumped in a couple of hours is never the greatest idea," he suggests.
Meanwhile, Friesen says the harvest to this point has been producing some exceptional yields in the area.
"I'm hearing some really big canola yields," says Friesen. "I'm hearing some really big wheat and oat yields."
He is hopeful for a really good soybean harvest and says the corn looks fantastic.
*All photos in the gallery below are courtesy of Reg Friesen / Prairie Sky Crop Solutions