Wet weather hard on district crops

The constant rainy and cool weather that plagued June is beginning to take its toll on district crops.
“Anything that was planted early is doing pretty good. The stuff that was planted later isn’t doing very well,” said Kim Jo Bliss, technician at the Emo Research Station.
Depending on the crop, some plants are suffering from the wet weather–others are dying.
“We’ve had soy beans completely washed out,” said Bliss.
“As for hay, the problem here and on farms is it’s starting to go too long,” she added. “Right now, the biggest talk is hay, you want to harvest it before it heads or flowers and now it’s heading and flowering.”
Many farmers have taken advantage of the sunshine over the past few days to cut their hay, and must now hope it doesn’t rain while it lies in the fields.
“There’s probably quite a bit of hay down right now,” said Bliss.
Meanwhile, a number of specialty crops grown for research purposes at the station also are being affected, including industrial hemp.
“It’s still really short but if it stays this warm, it will be all right,” Bliss remarked. “It’s just been too wet and cold for growing things.”
Larry Lamb, an Emo seed producer, has been having his own difficulties because of the wet weather. The weeds are growing fine while his crops struggle to keep up.
And because of the moisture in the soil, he is unable to spray.
“It’s muddy. I had to leave my sprayer and tractor in the field,” said Lamb, who is hoping for an ideal 25-degree C temperature, 15 km/h breeze, and sunshine for at least two weeks for the well-being of his plants and tractor, which he had to tow out of the mud.
“They’re kind of starting to suffer,” he noted.
In the meantime, Lamb can only be patient.
“I go and do something else until it stops raining. There’s really not much else you could do,” he reasoned.