Lack of timely rain drains prospect of bumper crops

For Ontario farmers, bumper corn and soybean crops are in the rearview mirror.

While farmers a year ago were looking at record corn yields and a heavy soybean crop, this year the outlook isn’t as promising.

“It looks like the corn is average to below average,” said Moe Agostino, chief commodity strategist with Farms.com Risk Management, adding the soybean crop appears average to below average.

Agostino is on a two-week tour of Ontario’s farm belt to evaluate the yield potential of corn and soybean crops. The trip’s sponsored by Farms.com Risk Management, Farms.com, Alpine, Maizex, and Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show.

The conclusion that this won’t be a bumper year follows evaluations in some of the best growing areas of Ontario, including Essex, Chatham-Kent, Lambton, Middlesex, Oxford, Elgin and Niagara.

The worst area has been Haldimand County and Niagara, where there’s been only three inches of rain since spring.

“The whole area is a writeoff,” Agostino said.

Across Ontario, precipitation has averaged only half of normal this season. Recent rains will do little for maturing corn and soybean plants, mainly increasing harvest weight, Agostino said.

The tour found few disease problems in the soybean crop, but corn fields have been hit by corn smut and western bean cutworms.

The low corn and soybean yields come as the U.S., the main influence on Ontario prices, is set to harvest the largest corn and soybean crops in history, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture projections.

The bright spot for Ontario farmers this year has been winter wheat, with new yield records set.