They didn’t.

“We got not quite two-thirds done, which is fairly average in our area,” said the Sylvan Lake-area farmer.

“We did our peas and most of our barley in September, and didn’t do any wheat or canola until November. We’ve still got a fair bit of wheat out, a little bit of canola, and all our fababeans are still out.

“Nobody in Alberta has seen this in the last 60 years. We’re all kind of making it up as we go along.”

But despite the unprecedented weather and record-long harvest, the lesson she learned from it was nothing new — “weather changes, and you have to roll with the punches.”

“We seeded probably the earliest we’ve ever had our entire crop in the ground, and we were prepared that we might be combining in August given how early our seeding was,” she said. “But it was a cool, cloudy, rainy summer, and everything was later, despite when it got started.”

Like Ammeter, D’Arcy Hilgartner didn’t quite finish harvest on his farm near Camrose, despite a strong start to the growing season.

“We started out the year fairly dry. As we came into May, there wasn’t a lot of moisture out there, and as we came to the end of seeding, it was getting really dry,” said Hilgartner.

“But seeding went better than it has in years. We didn’t have any weather delays. We didn’t get stuck. We didn’t have any issues that way.

“We got it all seeded and then the rains came, which was perfect. But the rains really never stopped until it snowed.”

The delayed harvest was a good reminder to “take advantage of every possible opportunity,” he said.

“There was no such thing as a perfect spraying day this year. It was more like, ‘it’s pretty close,’ or, ‘the crop is almost dry,’” said Hilgartner, who still has some flax and fababeans out in the field.

“We probably could have got a little further along in harvest before the rains hit again in October if we had done that a little more, but that’s one of those areas that you learn.”

Not all bad news

On the other hand, Dave Bishop was one of the few farmers in Alberta who lucked out in September.

“We were luckier than most of the rest of the province because everyone down here got everything off, even if it was later,” said Bishop, who farms near Barons, just north of Lethbridge.

“But it was a good reminder that Mother Nature rules the roost and can sometimes kick you in the butt when you least expect it.”

Spring seeding was drier than normal for Bishop, who has both dryland and irrigated crops. But in the end, “everything came off pretty good.”

“We started seeding pretty dry, but then it started raining and we ended up with a pretty decent crop. I feel very fortunate that the weather co-operated more so down in the south here and we were able to get our crops off.”

It was the same story on Greg Sears’ farm near Sexsmith.

“In our immediate area — and when I say immediate, I’m talking about 10 miles around us — people ended up being done fairly fast,” said Sears. “Ourselves, we were finished before the end of September before the really horrible weather set in.”

The dry spring was a nail-biter for Sears, but he learned quickly that “you always have to stay optimistic about what’s going to come.”

“Going into the season, in the spring we were dry and I don’t think there was much optimism when we were putting seed in the ground,” said Sears.

“But it turned out to be quite the opposite at the end of the year, and our yields were really good in our area.”

And harvest was a prime example of “making hay while the sun shines,” he added.

“A lot of people regret maybe waiting that extra day for something to get perfect instead of getting a little more aggressive and harvesting things when conditions were first appropriate.”

Spring harvest

But even though Sears finished harvest, he didn’t get his fall work done, including his normal fall application of fertilizer, and that’s “definitely going to make for more work in the spring.”

“With a little better preparation, I think we probably could have got the majority of that fall work done,” he said.

Bishop managed to get his fall work done “a week or two later than normal,” so he should be set to seed on time in the spring.

“I really feel for the farmers who still have crop out there because it’s going to be a big delay in the spring — they’re going to have to deal with the crop laying out there,” he said. “That’s going to delay their spring, and if it happens to be a wet spring, it’s just going to delay them further.”

For Hilgartner, “the harvest of 2016 will continue into the spring of 2017, unfortunately.”

“If things start to dry off in mid-March, it won’t take us very long to finish harvest off. But it’s always out there looming above us that we’re not quite done,” said Hilgartner. “How it will impact seeding is hard to say.”

That’s the big question on Ammeter’s farm, too.

“We’re going to have to do something fast, because our priority is to seed the next crop, or else we’re going to be in exactly the same place next fall,” she said. “We don’t want to start getting into that cycle.”

Ammeter expects they will at least be able to combine their canola, but options are limited for the wheat.

“I think we’re going to be dealing with it in some rather environmentally unpalatable ways, like burning it or doing some deep tillage,” she said. “We’re a low-till or zero-till farm, so that goes against our grain. But there’s a lot of 100-bushel wheat out there getting chewed up by mice.

“I think there will be a lot of people lighting matches around here.”

Cropping plans

The potential for a late start could also see a shift in some crop acres — mainly away from long-season crops toward shorter-season options.

“In the areas that have been hard hit, I think we’re going to find that if people can’t get crops off fast enough, they’re going to have to put in really short-season crops,” said Ammeter.

“Usually people make decisions based on price, but from the standpoint of what do we have time left to seed, we might see more of the short-season crops seeded unless we get a really early spring.”

Fababeans, for instance, take around 110 days to reach maturity, and they’re usually the first crop in the ground, said Ammeter. Peas, on the other hand, are a 90-day crop, so that’s going to factor in when people are pencilling out their cropping plans for 2017.

“It’s a whole different type of decision-making,” said Ammeter. “Normally, we’re looking at what’s our rotation, what are the best varieties for our climate, what are the prices looking like worldwide, and right now, we’ve thrown in this additional thing of when will I be able to get onto my land and do I need to choose something shorter season.”

Sears agrees.

“I suspect around the province there’s going to be a shift to shorter-season crops with the additional work of spring harvest and spring field work that has to be done.”

Sears is planning on reducing his wheat acres and increasing both field pea and malt barley acres, mainly because of a lack of fall fertilizer. But he doesn’t expect that most farmers will “change up their rotations a huge amount.”

“Making wholesale changes to rotations is usually not the best idea.”

Likewise, Hilgartner will be sticking to their rotation, come what may this spring.

“We have a rotation, and we follow it. We might not get the crops all at a high, but we won’t get them all at a low either.”

And as far as Ammeter is concerned, rotation is the “best tool they have” to spread their risk around and weather this storm.

“Last year (2015), we probably had the easiest harvest we’ve had in 10 years, and this year, we had the toughest harvest we’ve had in 70 years — but I don’t think that means that you change rotations,” said Ammeter. “For the most part, we still think that crop rotations are the answer, that the best thing you can do is stick to a rotation.

“I think this will be a year that really proves that one out.”

The post ONE FOR THE BOOKS: Lessons learned, and a look ahead appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Despite the harvest challenges for crops across the province, the dryland yield index was estimated 14.1 per cent above the 5-year average. However, the crop quality for cereals are below their 5-year averages, except malt barley which is higher. Crop quality for canola number one and the top two grades of dry peas are in line with the 5-year averages. About 66 per cent of hard red spring wheat has now graded in the top two grades, down 12 per cent from the 5-year average. About 54 per cent of durum wheat has graded number 2 or better, down 23 per cent from the 5-year average. About 23 per cent of barley is eligible for malt (up five per cent from the 5-year average) and 60 per cent is graded as number 1 (down seven per cent from the 5-year average). About 58 per cent of oats is graded in the top two grades, down 20 per cent from the 5-year average. Almost 81 per cent of harvested canola is graded as number one (in line with the 5-year average), with 14 per cent graded as number 2 (up two per cent from the 5-year average). About 73 per cent of dry peas are graded in the top two grades, in line with the 5-year averages.

Provincially, feed supplies are anticipated to be very good. Both forage and feed grain reserves are estimated as adequate to surplus, with very few producers anticipating a shortfall. Forage reserves are reported as one per cent deficit, nine per cent shortfall, 62 per cent adequate and 28 per cent surplus, while the rating for feed grain reserves is three per cent deficit, four per cent shortfall, 61 per cent adequate and 32 per cent surplus.

Click here to read the full report on the Alberta Agriculture website, complete with graphics and a breakdown by regions.

The post The long harvest of 2016, no thanks to the weather appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The pedigreed seed grower from Hughenden estimated only about 60 per cent of the acres in east-central Alberta had been harvested by the end of October.

“People have ordered dryers and some are putting crops in bags in hopes that they will be able to get it into a dryer afterward,” said Degenhardt, who farms with his wife, son and daughter-in-law.

In a good year, he usually finishes his harvest in late September or early October, depending on the size of his crop. But snow and intermittent showers kept him off his fields.

He isn’t alone. Just 73 per cent of the harvest had been completed by the last week of October, said Mark Cutts, crop specialist with Alberta Agriculture’s Ag Info Centre in Stettler.

• Read more: Help for some producers with unharvested acres

It’s especially frustrating for producers since good moisture conditions in June and July had raised the prospect of bumper crops across the Prairies.

“Some of the fields that we’ve taken off have had yields outside the norm, and they are some of the best yields we’ve seen,” said Degenhardt. “The problem is that we still don’t have all the crop off.”

It will mean a significant economic hit, but the impact in Alberta hasn’t been estimated yet, said Cutts.

Alberta Agriculture and Forestry Minister Oneil Carlier said his government is “committed to supporting our farm families” but suggested that producers will have to count on crop insurance to cover their losses.

“We take this issue seriously,” Carlier said in an email. “That’s why our government has taken a proactive approach by providing Alberta producers with business risk management programs through the Agriculture Financial Services Corporation.”

Harvesting in spring

Some producers are dealing with so much moisture and snow that they might not be able to get their crop off this fall, and will have to wait and combine next spring. That will not only have a big impact on yield and quality, but affect next year’s seeding schedule, said Cutts.

“Instead of seeding, you’ll have to finish combining and that will potentially set things backward in terms of dealing with the crop for 2017,” he said.

The situation varies across the province. In the central, northeast and northwest areas of the province, about 30 to 45 per cent of the crop still needs to be brought in. Producers in the south are the furthest along as they were the first to start harvesting. But the Peace River region is better off than some of areas to the south. Producers in the Peace still had about 20 per cent of crop in the fields in the last week in October.

“Hopefully we get some stretches of weather that allows combines to get back into the field,” said Cutts. “Producers are just waiting and hoping that the weather does turn for them and allows them to get into the field.”

But warm weather in November is hard to come by and that’s what is needed after all the moisture this fall.

Stop and start

Along with the rain and snow, the shortage of warm fall days hurt.

That was the story at Degenhardt’s place. Every time it rained, he would have to wait two to three days to let the crops dry. He would then only get two to three days of combining before another round of showers.

East-central Alberta has some advantages compared to other regions, since there are cattle and hogs in the area, and they can make use of the crops for feed. The ethanol facilities in nearby Lloydminster and Unity also take some high-moisture grains

Producers with lots of acres and drier land in east-central Alberta were taking off tough grain in September and October and drying it. Other producers have started putting their grain into air bins, and are taking grain off at 24 to 25 per cent, which is wet, not just tough.

“In our area, when you get into a bad harvest like this and you get into October or November, there is a lot of tough grain taken off at lower temperatures and then it is put in bins,” said Degenhardt.

This grain will need to be moved from one bin into another so that the temperature will stay constant.

“You need to be constantly working with that grain, turning it, trying to get it in place where you can actually get it in the dryer and dry it,” said Degenhardt. “It won’t keep for any length of time unless our temperatures are below freezing. Then you have a possibility of keeping it. But that requires constant monitoring if you want to take it off at that moisture.”

“Plan A is to get the crop off,” added Cutts. “Plan B is figuring out how to manage those crops when they’re in the bin because of the moisture.

“A month ago, I never would have thought we’d be having this conversation. We had a pretty tough October and I hope we get a window here sooner or later to allow producers to get back onto the field.”

The post Horrible fall harvest goes on and on appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

“This year’s wet weather in parts of Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba has certainly been challenging for many farmers whose crops have been affected by excessive moisture,” FCC president and CEO Michael Hoffort said in a news release.

“We want to assure them that we understand their situation and will help them through any financial hardship this has created.”

FCC said producers should contact their loans officer or call 1-888-332-3301 “to discuss their individual situation and options.”

One option would be to defer principal payments.

• Read more: Horrible fall harvest goes on and on

As well, producers may be eligible for an advance on their crop insurance, said the Agriculture Financial Services Corporation (AFSC).

“There are two types of Unharvested Acreage Benefits that a producer may be eligible to receive — the Basic Unharvested Acreage Benefit and the Supplementary Unharvested Acreage Benefit,” AFSC said in a release. “When calculated, these advances are deducted from the final post-harvest indemnity.”

The Basic Unharvested Acreage Benefit provides a payment of 25 per cent of the producer’s coverage on a per-acre basis for unharvested acres. The unharvested acres must be in excess of 20 per cent of the total insured acres for that crop. The advance covers the difference between the total harvested acres and the number of eligible unharvested acres.

To receive the benefit, producers must submit a Crop Harvest Production Report by Nov. 15. For more information, call 1-877-899-2372, send an email to info@afsc.ca, or visit an AFSC branch.

The post Help for some producers with unharvested acres appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Summer-like weather in Saskatchewan and Alberta, the two biggest wheat and canola-growing provinces in Canada — a top global exporter of both crops — allowed farmers to resume harvesting on the weekend after delays from last month’s snow.

“I hope I can get it done, or most of it anyhow,” said Laramie Eyben on harvesting his remaining 567 hectares of spring wheat and canola. It looked like a longshot last week because of adverse weather.

Eyben and his neighbors at Vermilion, Alberta, logged 18-hour days harvesting 600 acres of his canola before rain temporarily shut them down.

Eyben’s canola could be one of his best-yielding crops ever, thanks to extra moisture, but quality may be spotty. His late-harvested wheat will sell at a steep discount.

“Try to learn and adapt, that’s what farmers do,” Eyben said.

Farmers may gather up more than 90 per cent of Alberta’s harvest by next weekend, up from 76 per cent as of Nov. 1, government crop specialist Harry Brook said.

Canola quality has fared well since its seeds are insulated in pods, but cereals such as wheat face price penalties due to moisture damage, he said.

In Saskatchewan, harvesting has resumed in southern and western areas, but northeastern Saskatchewan is still too wet, said Shannon Friesen, the government’s cropping management specialist. Harvests may have to wait there until cold weather freezes the ground enough for machinery, she added.

Saskatchewan may have 90 per cent of the harvest done by next weekend, up from 82 per cent as of Oct. 24, she said.

In August, Statistics Canada estimated a canola harvest of 17 million tonnes, one of the largest ever, before the adverse weather wreaked havoc on farmers.

ICE Canada canola futures have lost nearly four per cent in the past week, tumbling from their highest prices since mid-June. They likely have further to fall as the harvest resumes, said Grant Hinrichsen, a futures broker at RJ O’Brien.

“It’ll be hanging over the market,” he said.

Environment Canada, a government agency, forecasts dry weather and daytime high temperatures of more than 10 Celsius (50 Fahrenheit) through the week in Saskatchewan and Alberta.

The post Warm spell raises hopes as Canadian farmers race to finish harvest appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

The preliminary dryland yield index for the province declined slightly again, but still remained 13.5 per cent above the 5-year average. Average yields for potatoes are estimated at 13.2 and 19.1 tons per acre, respectively, on dryland and irrigated fields. Irrigated yields for dry beans and sugar beets are reported at 2,480 pounds per acre and 27.3 tonnes per acre, respectively.

Provincially, crop quality deterioration continues due to the challenging wet harvest season and is below the 5 and 10-year averages for all crops, except malt barley and canola number 1 which are higher, and dry peas which is in line with the averages. About 71 per cent of hard red spring wheat is now graded in the top two grades, down seven per cent from the 5-year average. About 55 per cent of durum wheat has graded number 2 or better, down 22 per cent from the 5-year average. About 22 per cent of barley is eligible for malt (up four per cent from the 5-year average) and 63 per cent is graded as number 1 (down four per cent from the 5-year average). About 62 per cent of oats is graded in the top two grades, down 16 per cent from the 5-year average. Almost 93 per cent of harvested canola is in the top two grades (in line with the 5-year average), with 83 per cent graded as number 1 (up two per cent from the 5-year average).

Click here to read the full report on the Alberta Agriculture website, complete with graphics and a breakdown by regions.

The post Cool, wet weather continues to slow harvest appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Excessive moisture conditions continue to worsen. Excessive moisture is a significant issue in the North West where the rating rose to 41 per cent of the region (35 per cent last week) and in the Peace to 24 per cent rated excessive from 15 per cent last week. High excessive moisture conditions increase the potential of significant crop abandonment due to inaccessibility.

Fall seeded crops continue to perform well with over 86 per cent of the crops rated in good or excellent condition.

The post Harvest progress a struggle, unmelted snow remains appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.

Fall seeded crops are performing well early with the good soil moisture conditions. Eighty-eight per cent of fall crops in the South region are rated in good or excellent condition, an improvement of two points from last week.

Surface soil moisture is rated one per cent poor; 12 per cent fair; 57 per cent good; 28 per cent excellent; two per cent excessive. The bulk of the excessive moisture is in the North West and Peace regions. Sub soil moisture is rated two per cent poor; 18 per cent fair; 56 per cent good; 23 per cent excellent; one per cent excessive.

Click here to read the full report on the Alberta Agriculture website, complete with graphics and a breakdown by regions.

The post Harvest nears 50 per cent, wet soils slow progress appeared first on Alberta Farmer Express.