It’s snowing out there, and farmers say that’s made this year’s slow harvest even worse. About five to 10 centimetres of snow and/or freezing rain were set to fall on the Edmonton region as of Friday, said Environment Canada. It was the second big dump of the white stuff this month, and another in a long string of precipitation events stretching back two months. All this wet meant that just 72 per cent of the crops in Alberta were in the bin as of Friday, compared to about 90 per cent in most years, said James Wright, risk analyst with the Agriculture Financial Services Corporation (the Crown corporation that runs Alberta’s crop insurance). “We’ve just had terrible weather,” he explained, with frequent rains meaning frequent stops and starts to crop collection. “It’s been a real herky-jerky sort of fall.” This most recent snowstorm was one of several storm systems that have blown in from B.C. on the jet stream this week, said Brian Proctor, an Environment Canada meteorologist based in Edmonton. “We’re right on the edge of the baroclinic (temperature transition) zone for this kind of storm,” he added, which means we get bursts of wet snow as the zone moves instead of a single dump followed by drying winds. Walter Tappauf said he’d typically be done collecting from his 18,000 acres at this point, but because of the weather, he still had 5,500 left. He estimated that about a third of this region’s crops had yet to be collected, about 40 per cent of which was canola. “You get three days of good weather and then you get another dump,” said the St. Albert-area farmer. “You can’t get anything done.”

Bad for quality

Farmers report that about 25 per cent of farms in Region Four (which includes Edmonton and St. Albert) had excessive moisture as of this week, Wright said. “It’s going to be a real issue,” he said. Not only will those fields take longer to dry out enough to support farm equipment, but any crops in them will be at greater risk of germination, disease, and rot, all of which will degrade their quality. Most malt barley in the west has already been downgraded to feed in this region due to the slow harvest, Tappauf said, with similar drops seen in durum wheat down south due to fusarium disease. “Instead of going for noodles, which is a fairly high quality product, it’s basically worthless.” Snow means that any crop that’s still standing will likely be pounded into the ground, making it tougher to harvest, Wright said. He expects that some farmers may have to abandon their fields entirely, which will mean more delays next year as they have to clear those fields before reseeding them. Tappauf guessed that this was probably one of the five worst falls he’d seen in his 45 years as a farmer, and predicted a no-profit year for most farmers. Proctor didn’t have much good news for farmers weather-wise. Another storm was set to blow into Edmonton Sunday, which, depending on where it landed, could mean either more snow or freezing rain. “It’s a really unsettled weekend.” He said we could get out from under this storm track next week, but he doubted it, as he wasn’t seeing the ridge of high pressure needed to push the clouds away. “I still think we’re looking at very unstable conditions over the next week to two weeks.” Still, Wright said this was only Oct. 15, and this was not the worst fall he’d seen in his 40 years on the job. He predicted a year of decent yields but poor quality for most farmers, which would mean higher insurance payouts. While this week’s snow would mean at least a week’s delay, Tappauf said that all most farmers needed was two clear weeks to finish this year’s harvest. “You can’t say it’s over till it’s over.” Source - http://www.stalbertgazette.com