London-area farmers scan drought-stressed crops, and look to the skies

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Crispin Colvin is praying for help from above.

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London-area farmers scan drought-stressed crops, and look to the skies Back to video

“We need that million-dollar rain, as it’s often called, because yeah, things are pretty dry and the corn’s starting to stress,” said the Thorndale farmer, who planted 70 acres of corn this spring.

Given the heat so far this summer, and the lack of precipitation, Colvin – a director with the Ontario Federation of Agriculture – fully expected crops in Southwestern Ontario to start showing signs of heat stress.

“I almost wonder if we would have had it sooner, quite honestly,” he said Friday.

“In some areas I am hearing that it’s pretty dire,” said Brendan Byrne, who is the board chair for the Grain Farmers of Ontario.

Bryne’s operation is just outside the town of Essex. He says the crops he sees in his area could use a thundershower that brings an inch and a half, or two inches of rain.  “(The plants) would soak it up really quick and you’d see a noticeable difference in how the crop looks, as well as it would jump in terms of size,” he said.

Byrne already has noticed some crops “starting to pineapple on the top,” which happens because prolonged lack of moisture makes the leaves curl to reduce transpiration and appear spikey.

Farmers in Southwestern Ontario already were having a challenging year, with dramatic increases in input costs, Byrne and Colvin said. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has resulted in higher costs for gas, diesel and fertilizer.

After investing heavily to get the crop in the ground, rain is needed to preserve that investment.

“I’m in an area where I watch the Detroit newscast and they’ll talk about rain that’s on the way, and it’s going to come through Metro Detroit at a certain time, and by the time it even starts across the water toward us, it’s already broke up or split up,” Byrne observed.

Some farmers have taken to irrigating their parched crops. Byrne says that’s a strategy that makes sense for sweet corn, but is not practical for field corn that goes into the food chain and for ethanol or animal feed.

This week, Colvin dug down into the ground of one of his fields to find out how dry it is. “I was down three inches and I still was just pulling up dusty dirt,” he said. “No moisture in the soil,”

The ideal solution, in his words, would be a two- or three-day rain that falls gently and soaks into the ground. However, he’s not picky. “At this point, I’ll take anything that falls from the sky that’s wet,” Colvin said.

“I think that at this point, we could all use a rain, probably a wide one across Ontario would be welcome,” added Byrne. “And then I think we’d all be in pretty good shape.”

danbrown@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/DanatLFPress