By Allan Bradbury
Staff writer
abradbury@fortfrances.com
Odd weather patterns have made for a strange year for farmers in the District and nowhere is that more evident than at the Emo Agricultural Research Station.
Manager Kim Jo Bliss says the station’s annual open house, to be held Thursday evening, July 31, 2025, will bear that out.
“So it started off kind of cold,” Bliss said.
“We got a later spring start and then of course it turned hot and we were dry for May and June. Then we’ve had more rain in July than we had in April, May, and June, combined. So that’s kind of a bummer.”
The weather has also been helpful for some crops.
“It’s good for our pastures and any of the hay that still standing, it’s created a little bottom growth,” she said.
“Because yields were looking fairly light unless you had heavy alfalfa stands, then things were sort of decent because Alfalfa likes dry weather.”
Bliss said the weather has lent to extra weed production.
“There seems to be a lot of weed pressure, and it seems to be across the province,” she said.
“We’ve noticed lots of Pig Weed, it seems to be really healthy and aggressive. Most of us spray but we’ve got sort of like a second flush of weeds and it’s been a challenge because of the rain we’ve had lately, it’s hard to get on the fields and spray and stuff like that. So we may have a lot of weeds to show people.”
Despite the weather, Bliss says the District is looking about as good as anywhere.
The Times reached Bliss while at meetings in Southern Ontario and she says before flying out of Winnipeg she noticed the crops in Manitoba as well.
“I just flew out of Winnipeg yesterday and we have as good crops as you see anywhere to be quite honest with you and where I’m at right now it’s really dry here, I haven’t seen a ton of crops but it’s extremely dry, ” she said.
The wet July weather has made for a struggle for those trying to bale hay.
“For the people trying to make dry hay right now it’s been really miserable,” she said.
“It’s hard on a person because that’s really what you focus on is to make hay, and it takes more than three nice days in a row to make hay.”
At the research station, the less than ideal weather led to later planting for the crops.
“We kind of planted later than we would normally because things were not dry enough and then the weed pressure has made it more challenging. It’s the same pressure that you would see on a farm,” she said.
“We’re finally getting closer to seeing the end of our drainage problems. We’re close to getting approvals to get that drainage fixed up so that’s going to make a big difference, we were limited on where we can plant. If people are paying us to do a trial I don’t want to put it in somewhere and then say ‘sorry it flooded out.’ So we have to be careful where we put stuff and how much we agree to do.”
The Research Station’s open house starts at 7 p.m. and will wrap up the annual crop tour hosted by the Rainy River Soil & Crop Improvement Association. The tour kicks off in the
morning at Micha Gerber’s farm near Fort Frances and then stretches across the district.
Bliss says that some of the crops at the station have done really well but they may be harvested before the open house.
“We had a new winter crop, Camelina, that we were going to showcase but it might not be there,” she said.
“We’ve had a couple of alfalfa trials that are really impressive but we will probably have to harvest next week. So it may not be as much to see when it comes to that, but we can talk about yields. As usual, we have the cereal crops and we’ll probably spend a little bit of time on the three sisters (corn, beans, and squash.) We’re doing four different treatments for weed control which is a big thing for people, even just for gardeners.”
The schedule for this year’s crop tour is as follows:
9:00 a.m. Start at Micha Gerber’s Farm 2309 Hwy 602
9:45 Depart
10:00 Aaron Martin’s Farm
10:45 Depart
11:00 Cornell Grazing Corn
11:30 Depart
11:45 Food Grains Project (parking in Bob Steele’s yard)
12:15 Depart
12:30 Lunch Break @ Purity Seeds
1:15/1:30 Depart
2:00 Pollard’s Haystand No-till rejuvenation
2:30 Depart
2:45 Brielmann Ag
3:45 Depart
4:00 Philip Krahn 15 inch Corn
4:30 Tour End.
7:00 Research Station Tour
