Manitoba Agriculture reports the severe weather that passed through the province this past weekend has taken a heavy toll on some crops.
Manitoba Agriculture released its weekly crop report yesterday.
Pam de Rocquigny, a cereal crop specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, reports we are seeing pockets throughout most of the regions that are dealing with excessive moisture.
The big story for the past week in terms of what the crop report captured was the severe weather system that moved through many areas of the province over the weekend. There was strong winds associated with heavy rains and actually hail as well in some areas and that obviously is going to have an impact on the crops in those areas that are impacted.
We’re kind of doing some assessments right now in terms of the impact by hail in those areas that did receive some larger sized hail and then we’ll know more over the next coming weeks kind of what impact that’ll have. But, really at this point there’s areas within the province that are seeing excessive moisture conditions and that of course is having an impact on crop development and we’re seeing definitely symptoms of excess moisture stress in many of those acres and many of those fields that are impacted.
The areas that don’t have excessive moisture issues, they’re actually saying their crops are looking actually good. They’re rated in anywhere from good to excellent condition but unfortunately on the flip side we have areas throughout southern Manitoba that do have excessive moisture issues and it’s definitely having an impact on the crop.
We’re seeing crops that are yellowing, we’re seeing crops that have slow crop development, we’re seeing areas of the fields where they’ve been saturated for such a period of time now that we’re actually seeing crop death in those lower areas of the fields as well. ~ Pam de Rocquigny, Manitoba Agriculture
De Rocquigny says insect pressure has been minimal so far this year but the abundant moisture has raised some disease concerns.
She says yield potentials on some of the most severely water damaged acres have now been capped but, on the less severely impact acres, a stretch of warm dry weather could allow those crops to recover.
