Harvest season is off to a less-than-ideal start for many Manitoba farmers, whose efforts have been thwarted by months of wet conditions.
Bill Campbell, president of Keystone Agricultural Producers (KAP), says with calendars about to turn to September, many producers are well behind schedule, at least compared to where they’ve been in past years — with some crops seemingly slow to mature this year because of all the rain.
“I can remember a couple of years where we were virtually done harvest by September long weekend — and there’s a lot of people that have not even started (and won’t) by September long this year,” Campbell said.
“We’ve got some concerns moving forward about harvest, but we’re optimistic.”
Campbell said a nice stretch of dry weather would be a game-changed for many local farmers, but it’s not only rain that’s leading to harvest setbacks.
“Normally at harvest time, we do have drier conditions, and so that is what is presenting those challenges — the higher moisture levels in the ground and all of those features that are bringing that along.
“At sunset, that dew and humidity starts to show up again, so sometimes shortly after the sun falls, we have to quit.
“Hopefully the forecast indicates that we maybe have a bit of turn in the weather — it certainly would be appreciated by the farming community if that weather was to change a little bit from what we’ve been getting the last little while.”