‘Stressful Spring’ Has Ontario Farmers Worried About Crop Conditions

(Bloomberg) -- The old adage of “knee high by first of July” isn't ringing true for most cornfields in southern Ontario this year. Instead, crops are almost a month behind normal development thanks to a soggy spring.

It has been “the most stressful spring I have ever experienced,” said Jeff Harrison, who has been farming for more than two decades and is a director for the Grain Farmers of Ontario.

Growers in southern Ontario have faced much of the same weather that has wreaked havoc across the U.S. Midwest. Harrison counts himself lucky. Unlike his neighbors in Trenton, he was able to seed most of his corn and soybean acres, with just 10% left unplanted.

Statistics Canada updated its acreage numbers last week. Ontario corn acres were reduced to 2.2 million, while soybeans were increased to 3.1 million, although the survey was completed about a month ago when farmers may still have been optimistic.

“When you look at the spring that we've had and how late we've been planting, it's hard to imagine that we got toward that 2.2 million,” Matthew Pot, economist for Grain Perspectives in Burlington, Ontario, said by phone. He estimates corn acreage closer to 1.8 million to 1.9 million acres.

Some farmers are also still planting soybeans. The weather has turned warmer and drier over the past week, making for prime sowing conditions, a month later than usual.

Given the tight planting window and late seeding, concern now turns to yields. If conditions are ideal, with no early frosts, crops could still be decent. But if yields fall, there could be a supply disruption in southern Ontario for corn and soybeans. Philip Shaw, an agricultural economist from Dresden, Ontario, says the province probably will have to import corn.

The problem is “where are you going to get it from? Because the eastern Corn Belt, which is typically a source to get it from, doesn't have it to give,” Shaw said by phone.

To contact the reporter on this story: Ashley Robinson in Winnipeg (Non BLP Loc) at arobinson193@bloomberg.net

To contact the editors responsible for this story: James Attwood at jattwood3@bloomberg.net, Steven Frank

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