Ontario's wheat plantings lag behind intentions
Wednesday, November 2, 2011
by SUSAN MANN
The deadline for reporting wheat acreage to Agricorp has passed, but if farmers are planting into good soil conditions now they should still go for it.
Peter Johnson, OMAFRA cereals specialist, says he strongly encourages growers to plant wheat even though it’s after the crop insurance acreage reporting deadline. When he was out and about Wednesday, he saw several farmers planting.
Johnson says he doesn’t think the crop insurance deadline should “rule your decision-making process on whether or not to plant wheat.”
But there are some risks to planting late. The later farmers plant, the less likely they’ll hit yields of 90 or 100 bushels per acre. Some things farmers should consider when deciding to plant wheat late are: how badly the straw and a place for manure are needed, how important is crop rotation and how does wheat at 80 bushels per acre stack up economically against soybeans at 45 bushels per acre and corn at 160 bushels per acre.
Most of the just under the 600,000 acres of wheat planted in Ontario was seeded Oct. 9 to 13. Then rain hit. The Oct. 9 and 10 planted wheat is in great shape while the Oct. 11 planted wheat is questionable. The crop planted on the 12th and during the morning of the 13th is struggling “to say the least,” Johnson says, noting some of that wheat will have thin spots or sections in fields where it had been killed.
Three weeks of rain starting on Oct. 13 left the soils cold and saturated. Wheat doesn’t like wet feet particularly until it gets started and emerges.
“I will just about bet anyone lunch that the wheat planted on Nov. 5 into good soil conditions and followed by decent whether will out yield the Oct. 12th wheat,” he says.
Last year, one million acres were planted. Farmers had intended to plant at least 800,000 acres this fall, Johnson says. Fewer acres across Ontario means there may not be enough to supply the straw demand and straw will be at a premium.
But the crop will be sufficient to meet the domestic wheat market and some will still be able to be exported to the United States, he says.
Lindsay Barfoot, Agricorp industry specialist, grains and oilseeds, says Nov. 1 was the last day Agricorp could accept winter wheat acres for insurance coverage for this winter. A total of 460,000 acres were reported by the deadline to the Crown corporation that administers the province’s crop insurance program.
“This is 65 per cent of what we had last year,” says Barfoot, noting it’s still not the lowest number of acres reported in the past seven years. The range is one million acres for the highest acreage reported and 370,000 for the lowest.
Anecdotally Barfoot says he has heard farmers didn’t get their wheat planted because excessive rain delayed the soybean harvest.
So far, 5,000 customers have reported their wheat acres and that’s down from 7,800 farmers last year.
Farmers unable to plant should still report zero acres to keep their insurance contract active for future years. To be eligible for full coverage, farmers must have planted their wheat by the deadline for their area. If someone planted after the deadline, they may still qualify for coverage from all perils except winterkill. But Agricorp officials would have to approve that coverage.
Growers should call Agricorp before May 1, 2012 to ask about wheat coverage planted after the deadline. Barfoot says Agricorp staff would go out and look at the wheat and decide on a case-by-case basis if it qualifies for coverage.
What Agricorp looks to confirm is if the late-planted wheat got established and there’s a crop that can be insured for the rest of the year, he explains.
There’s no insurance coverage if the wheat planted after the planting deadline is killed by winter weather.
Barfoot says wheat planted after Oct. 31 has a higher risk of winterkill than the insurance plan can cover. BF