Southern Alberta’s farmers are deep into harvest season. Recent rain may have slowed them down, but producers say they are powering through to get the job done. Fields and roadways have been filled with farm machinery in recent weeks across southern Alberta. It’s the annual reminder that it’s harvest time across southern Alberta. “We’re done through the barley, through the dry land cereal and onto canola,” said farmer Stephen Vandervalk. “And now [we’re] just pretty much waiting on irrigation -- so irrigated canola, and you get a durum [wheat, which] just takes kind of forever, don’t swath anymore type things that led to ripen. And it just takes a while so [you] just have to be patient,” It’s one of few times in a year farmers don’t want to see very much moisture. But a wet start to September has thrown a wrench into plans. It’s caused some farmers to fall off their usual September pace. “We’re behind two or three weeks for sure, I would say,” said farmer Sean Stanford. “We had a late start to the spring this year. We had a, a wet, cold early season in the the beginning of the growing season, which delayed our seeding activities for a little bit.” It’s been an up-and-down growing season for most. The optimism brought on by one of the wettest Junes the region has ever seen was derailed by a hot, dry July. That left yield and quality up to when the crop was planted. “I don’t know yet,” said Vandervalk, when asked about the yield and quality of his crops. “Malt’s not looking very good,” he said. “Six weeks of zero rain. It just was too thick to start because we get that nice rain at the beginning of the season, and so the plump [quality] just isn’t there.” “The little bit that last seeded barley is, the yields were almost half of the early seeded barley.” With more rain in the forecast, farmers will be racing to get their crop off. Temperatures have already been starting to dip with frost becoming more likely as time passes. “There’s always a risk of frost,” said Stanford. “I see some overnight lows are supposed to be pretty chilly for the next few days here. And, we’re supposed to get a bunch more rain on the weekend, so that’s not ideal by any means.”
