Manitoba Agriculture reports that over the past seven days, isolated thunderstorms with hail, strong winds and intense rain have affected crops in many regions of province.
In parts of the province there were some rains, thunderstorms, with hail and some strong winds throughout parts of the province. Areas of the southwest did have large hail, which was damaging to crops, and variable precipitation, ranging anywhere from zero to about 80 millimeters of precipitation across the province.
Each region of the province had areas with zero precipitation and areas with at least 25 millimeters, so some large amounts of rainfall. In some areas of the province that are already having saturated soils, that rainfall definitely didn’t help. We are seeing some areas of the province that have consistently had this, you know, wet conditions are still quite wet. But that heat that we have had over the weekend in the past few days, I think has helped to dry some areas out as well. So, we’re still assessing.
In some cases, and, depending on the crop type in the area, some crops have rebounded quite well. Other crops are still having a lot of issues and there’s some areas where fields were just completely flooded out. They were underwater for too long, and there is nothing growing or they are still underwater. So, kind of variable issues across the province, so it’s hard to get an assessment right now until crop insurance publishes more information on excess moisture claims and unseeded acres as well.
~ Anne Kirk, Manitoba Agriculture
Kirk notes crop development and condition vary across the province and crops in those areas that haven’t been as impacted by the excess moisture do look great. She says the fusarium risk is high in most regions due to the high humidity and warmer temperatures so there is a lot of fungicide spraying happening right now.
