Canada: Timely rainfall boosts eastern crops

Ontario’s farmers are beginning to harvest what appears to be a bumper crop of corn and soybeans, says an industry official.

“It has been a really good year, we have been really lucky,” said Sara Wood, vice-president of the Ontario Federation of Agriculture.

She attributes their good fortune to a series of timely rains throughout the growing season, although it has been too wet in some pockets of the province.

“The other nice thing has been that we’ve had an excellent September, (with) warm (days) and cool nights,” said Wood, who farms near Mitchell, Ont.

There have been a lot of summer-like days with temperatures exceeding 25 C right when the corn cob heads, and soybean pods are filling.

The soybean harvest is underway and should be complete by the end of October.

“(The soybeans) are surprising us. They are drier than they look from the road,” she said.

No corn has come off, other than what is being used for silage. Harvest usually starts in October and can end as late as January.

Wood said the early-seeded corn and soybeans look fantastic.

“We’re starting to see them come off with that bumper crop yield,” she said.

Late-seeded crops will likely have average to above-average yields, but that all depends on the fall weather. An early frost could be devastating.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture confirms what Wood is seeing on the ground and hearing from her fellow farmers around the province.

It is forecasting a record corn yield of 167.8 bushels per acre for Canada in 2024-25.

“Yield has increased due to favorable weather since the start of the growing season in the main corn producing regions of Ontario and Quebec,” the USDA stated in its recent World Agricultural Production report.

Precipitation has been above normal during the growing season, which supported strong crop development.

“As a result, this season’s satellite-derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) suggest high yield potential,” said the agency.

The USDA’s Foreign Agricultural Service conducted crop tours in August in southern Ontario.

“The corn crop conditions were observed to be very good,” said the agency.

The USDA is also forecasting record soybean yields for Canada of 46.4 bu. per acre based on NDVI maps and the August crop tour of southern Ontario.

“Farmers were optimistic that with the additional precipitation that fell at the end of August, the soybean crop would get an additional boost in growth before harvest,” stated the agency.

It is predicting 7.2 million tonnes of Canadian soybean production and 15.2 million tonnes of corn.

Ontario and Quebec are expected to account for 87 percent of Canada’s corn production and 78 percent of its soybeans in 2024.

Wood said Ontario’s edible bean crops are in good shape but took a bit of a yield hit from the excessive moisture, so it won’t be a bumper crop like the corn and soybeans.

Farmers are currently planting winter wheat. Getting the crop in the ground that early usually pays dividends, but it has become a bit dry in her area of the province after two weeks without rain.

“We’re ready for a drizzle,” she said.

Ontario’s cattle producers are pleased with the supply of feed crops.

“Most of the province has got three cuts of hay and forage this year, if not a fourth cut,” said Wood.

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