I thought this area, west of Highway 2, and roughly Red Deer to Olds was amongst the garden spots this year. But after a few tours, apparently I'm not alone in having some ugly stands and drownouts etc.
Wheat is the one crop that looks good almost without exception, if you ignore all the flooded out spots, what survived the water all looks thick and healthy. I suspect there are more acres this year than in recent years too. Keep in mind that out here quite a bit of this will be CPS wheat.
Barley. Low spots are awful( including entire fields), hills are suffering. The good ground in between looks good. Some very late barley, not headed yet, but looks better than early. Must have been seeded after combining? I'd say much fewer acres of barley.
Canola. A few very good fields ( what would have been average in previous years). Many fields are shutting down/finished flowering, perhaps a bit early for out here. What surprised me, is a lot of canola is finished flowering and is 1 to 2 feet tall, never seen that before. Can see dirt through, can see rows. I didn't get out to look, so not sure what the cause is, the heat, or the wet earlier, disease. Not isolated areas, but every 3 or 4 feild. Lots of holes in most fields, bugs. Some of my canola stands are full of giant holes from a combination of flea beetles, being too wet, flea beetles, buried too deep and flea beetles. I have some canola that is already slowing down flowering, and some other patches are still green, barely started flowering yet as they attempt to recover from the flea beetles. Will make for another interesting harvest. Didn't go looking for blanks from all the heat elsewhere, there are a few blanks on my own though.
Peas, Saw one tremendous field, a lot of drowned out patches on nearly every field.
Faba beans: Drove by the best stand of Faba's I've ever seen yesterday, and that's the only field I've seen. They sure like the wet weather.
Corn seems to be loving all the heat and moisture, looks real good, and no significant drownouts like most years.
Pastures look brown already in a lot of places. Hay crops were/are very good and good weather for most, good second cut coming for most.
Many thousands of acres unseeded, still some unharvested, I've heard of two separate reports of harvesting lately. Lots of last years crop still standing in the middle of this years crop. Ruts everywhere from spraying.
All in all, less acres due to crop out and too wet, and nothing looks near as good as the past few years, except wheat.
Wheat is the one crop that looks good almost without exception, if you ignore all the flooded out spots, what survived the water all looks thick and healthy. I suspect there are more acres this year than in recent years too. Keep in mind that out here quite a bit of this will be CPS wheat.
Barley. Low spots are awful( including entire fields), hills are suffering. The good ground in between looks good. Some very late barley, not headed yet, but looks better than early. Must have been seeded after combining? I'd say much fewer acres of barley.
Canola. A few very good fields ( what would have been average in previous years). Many fields are shutting down/finished flowering, perhaps a bit early for out here. What surprised me, is a lot of canola is finished flowering and is 1 to 2 feet tall, never seen that before. Can see dirt through, can see rows. I didn't get out to look, so not sure what the cause is, the heat, or the wet earlier, disease. Not isolated areas, but every 3 or 4 feild. Lots of holes in most fields, bugs. Some of my canola stands are full of giant holes from a combination of flea beetles, being too wet, flea beetles, buried too deep and flea beetles. I have some canola that is already slowing down flowering, and some other patches are still green, barely started flowering yet as they attempt to recover from the flea beetles. Will make for another interesting harvest. Didn't go looking for blanks from all the heat elsewhere, there are a few blanks on my own though.
Peas, Saw one tremendous field, a lot of drowned out patches on nearly every field.
Faba beans: Drove by the best stand of Faba's I've ever seen yesterday, and that's the only field I've seen. They sure like the wet weather.
Corn seems to be loving all the heat and moisture, looks real good, and no significant drownouts like most years.
Pastures look brown already in a lot of places. Hay crops were/are very good and good weather for most, good second cut coming for most.
Many thousands of acres unseeded, still some unharvested, I've heard of two separate reports of harvesting lately. Lots of last years crop still standing in the middle of this years crop. Ruts everywhere from spraying.
All in all, less acres due to crop out and too wet, and nothing looks near as good as the past few years, except wheat.
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