Three thunderstorms in five days hit the Weyburn area. The timing of the storms could have been slightly better, though, with many of the producers in the area in the full swing of harvest. Now, some producers are having to take a day or two while things dry out and inspect for damage at the same time.
“Quite a bit of crop damage,” said Dale Paslawski. He farms north of Weyburn.
“This rain that we got would have been sweet right at the first week of July before the heat,” Paslawski continued. “It would have gave us a bit of a boost in crop yield, and our yields are below average, and now some of them are going to be quite below average. We’ve got some canola that’s probably hailed out at 85 percent, which should equal a hundred with some hail companies.”
The hail that fell across the region ranged from pea-sized to golf-ball-sized. In addition to the storms, there were also strong winds, with some gusts of upwards of 90 kilometres an hour reported in the area. The wind did cause a bit of concern at first for Paslawski. He swathes his canola and had some lying in the field when the storm hit.
“When you swath some of your crops, if you don’t cut them close to the ground, especially canola, and you use a swath roller, you can actually anchor your swaths, and I had zero wind damage, which I was totally amazed (about),” Paslawski explained.
The precipitation itself can also cause issues. Harvest rain can lead to fields becoming muddy, which means the possibility of machines getting stuck, or ruts getting formed in the fields. As well, it is harder to get vehicles into the fields, meaning needing to leave trucks on the road instead of going into the field.
“We’ve already got bleaching in some of our durum, but I don’t know if it’s going to really knock grade back that much,” Paslawski said of the conditions he is encountering. Sprouting is another issue that could come up when there are harvest rains.
Now, producers are hoping the weather will stay dry and sunny until they can get the rest of the 2024 crop into the bins.
“We thought we’d be well over half done, which we would have been if it wasn’t for the storms already,” the farmer said. “We don’t like any rain during harvest. You know, it does stop the fire hazard, but we just want to roll and get ‘er done.”