Flooded fields plague some farmers in Chatham-Kent
Thursday, June 27, 2013
by SUSAN MANN
Some fields in the former Dover/Chatham township areas of Chatham-Kent are awash in water but the provincial agriculture ministry says it too early to determine how the excess rain hitting the area will affect crops in the long term.
Gabrielle Gallant, spokesperson for the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture and Food, says by email they’ve had early reports that some crops in the Dresden/Wallaceburg area have been affected by rainfall “but other fields in the area have not been affected.”
She says “it’s too early in the season to tell the full and long-term impact of weather on crops.”
Chatham-area cash crop farmer Ralph Brodie says he has a bit of flooding in a couple of his fields but with some sun and wind “it will clear up. It’s hurt some soybeans but not badly.” His corn wasn’t damaged because “it’s so tall.”
In the wet spots on Brodie’s 200-acre farm, the soybeans look yellow. “They don’t need any more rain.”
One crop in his area that will take a hit is seed corn, which is just at the two-week stage, he notes. The crops that have been damaged by flooding are mainly the small ones, while farmers experiencing the brunt of the damage are the ones who were late planting corn or soybeans.
Brodie says it’s too late to replant the seed corn but not grain corn or soybeans. Still, there are challenges to replanting. “A lot of us are no-till now and you go into those narrow rows, you can do a lot of damage.”
Agricorp spokesperson Stephanie Charest says they’ve had less than 10 flood damage reports so far this year from the former Dover/Chatham townships in Chatham-Kent and 273 for excess rainfall.
Damage reports don’t necessarily equal losses, she says. “It’s still early and we have to wait and see what happens with the crops. Sometimes they recover.”
For the province overall, so far this year there are 80 damage reports for flooding, 2, 211 for excess rainfall and 35 for excess moisture, she says. In comparison, the 10-year average across Ontario for a full year is 66 damage reports for flooding, 3,224 for excess rainfall and 416 for excess moisture.
Brodie, the Ontario Federation of Agriculture director for Essex and Kent, says the flooding occurs when it rains hard, as it has been, hits the hills in the fields and runs down to the low-lying areas instead of soaking into the soil. “It takes a while for them (the low spots) to dry up.” The soil in the area varies from sandy to Brookston clay.
Environment Canada climatologist Dave Phillips says the rainfall data for the area is spotty but their station in Chatham recorded 63 millimetres of rain on June 17 along with some areas reporting hail, a funnel cloud, frequent lightning, strong gusty winds and heavy downpours. Ridgetown got 30 millimetres, while New Glasgow got about 25 millimetres. “We see smaller amounts elsewhere” and there could have been much more somewhere else where the thunderstorm stalled, he says.
The difference in rainfall amounts is due to substantial thunderstorms where it can rain heavily in one area but not another, he explains.
What made the June 17 rainfall worse for the area, though, was the significant rainfall that occurred on June 12 and 13, Phillips says. Essex and Lambton counties got 35 to 50 millimetres on those dates with less rain falling farther east. There was also some rain in between the two dates.
“It’s quite possible that in less than a week, some places got 100 millimetres of rain,” he says, noting that the normal rainfall total for June in the Chatham area is 83 millimetres.
The fields wouldn’t have dried out between the two significant rainfalls. “I image there was a lot of rivulets created and some over surface flooding,” he notes.
Brodie says he was out driving around and there is still water lying in the fields today. To make matters worse, it’s still raining. “We got another quarter inch last night and a quarter inch yesterday.”
Some farmers are pumping the water off their fields, but you need equipment to do that and a place to pump it to, such as an open creek. Otherwise, Brodie says he doesn’t know how long it will take for the flooding to recede. “A good sunny day with a dry wind will dry a lot up,” he says, noting in about two days most spots on the surface will be dried up. The soil, however, won’t be dry enough after that length of time for farmers to get in and plant anything.
BMO Economics says despite some regions experiencing heavy rain in May and June, the outlook for Canada’s crop development remains positive with Canadian farmers still getting higher than normal prices for a number of crops. But increased supply after this summer’s harvest, as American farmers get back on track following last year’s drought, will likely mean lower prices for Canadian farmers but should also reduce food prices for North American consumers. BF