Stephan Vandervalk inspects a seed head in a field of durum wheat he says is in need of rain near Fort Macleod, Alta., on July 4.Ian Martens/The Globe and Mail
Jeff Carlson, a fourth generation farmer in central Alberta, can walk through his canola fields without hitting any plants. In a normal year, the plants would be nearly a metre tall and visitors would have to fight their way through the stalks.
Mr. Carlson farms around Olds and Trochu, between Red Deer and Calgary, and is among the Prairie grain producers dealing with a lack of moisture. The heat in May and June quickly cooked this year’s prospects. The crops he planted first were struggling by the time he finished seeding his last field.
“We were beat before we got started,” he said in an interview.
This year’s dry spring fuelled record-setting wildfires in Alberta, capturing international attention as the smoke from the blazes spread across the country, and over the United States. Those same conditions damaged farm prospects on the Prairies, particularly in southern and central Alberta, but without the rash of global headlines.
Roughly 45 per cent of Alberta’s major crop conditions were rated good to excellent as of June 27, according to the province’s most recent data. This is 29 per cent below the five-year average and 27 per cent below the 10-year average.
A lack of moisture during the growing season, has been hampering crops, with the south, central and northern part of the Peace region remaining especially dry.
Alberta’s department of agriculture and irrigation, in a June 28 report, noted there are several pockets in the southern region experiencing once-in-50-year lows, while the western and northern parts of the Peace region have been hit with once-in-12-to-25-year lows.
The Alberta government did not make the new Agriculture and Irrigation Minister, RJ Sigurdson, available for an interview. Savannah Johannsen, a spokeswoman for the department, said drought conditions are on the province’s radar.
“As these moisture levels remain a top priority, we are continuously looking into more options to try and aid our farmers during this time,” she said in a statement.
Mr. Carlson, who farms about 3,440 hectares of wheat, barley and canola, said the heads on his cereal crops started to emerge in the first week of June, about two weeks early. This cuts into a crop’s potential yield.
“Right during key times, they were starving for water,” he said.
Parts of his operation received about 63 mm of rain on June 16, enough to give the canola a fighting chance, he said. But pests like flea beetles, cutworms and gophers have further chewed into his crop’s potential yield.
His farm in Alberta has, so far, been spared from grasshoppers, but the insects are threatening his healthier crops in Saskatchewan, where his business, Carlson Agricultural Enterprises Ltd., farms another 3,237 hectares.
Stephen Vandervalk, another fourth-generation farmer, grows malt barley, durum and canola around Fort Macleod and Claresholm in southern Alberta. About 25 per cent of his operation’s 4,856 hectares are irrigated but the fields without supplemental water aren’t seeing rain, he said.
In his area, the drought is accompanied by a wave of insects, including cabbage seedpod weevils, bugs that feed on the buds of early canola plants. Lygus bugs are also proving problematic for the oil seed.
“There’s no use even spraying because unless we get a couple decent rains here, the canola is not even going to make a crop at all,” Mr. Vandervalk said. He predicted his canola yield could drop by 80 to 90 per cent compared to normal.
His barley is faring better, even though the crop’s heads emerged early. Optimistically, it could result in two-thirds of a normal crop, he said.
The producer said his farm spent $600,000 in crop insurance premiums this year.