Ontario farmers are expected to plant a record corn crop this spring, but the fields will have to be drier before local farmers can start the planting frenzy.
“You just get a little antsy that you’d like to get started, but everybody will be ready when the weather is co-operating,” Brendan Byrne, Essex County chairman of the Grain Farmers of Ontario, said during a rainy Wednesday.
Statistics Canada says farmers in Ontario expect to plant 2.3 million acres of corn used for grain, which would be up two per cent from last year, and could be above the 2.2 million acre record in 2012. The Statistics Canada survey done for field crops has nothing to do with sweet corn that you eat.
The survey of 13,805 farmers and their planting intentions across Canada in March also shows there could be a record soybean crop of 4.3 million acres in Canada this year, according to a Statistics Canada release Wednesday .
Manitoba farmers are expected to plant more soybeans while Ontario farmers could plant less. In Ontario 2.5 million acres of soybeans could be planted, which would be down from a 2012 record, the release said.
Byrne said it will be interesting to see if local farmers plant more corn. Soybeans and corn are the big field crops in Essex County but what gets planted depends on factors like price and crop rotation. In 2011 there were 160,530 acres of soybeans and 53,322 acres of grain corn in Essex County.
Winter freezing and thawing and heavy rains hurt some of the winter wheat that was planted in the fall, Byrne said. Some farmers may abandon the wheat and plant corn on those fields.
Byrne, who farms near Essex, said he doesn’t have any crops planted yet. He said the wet weather shouldn’t put farmers too far behind on planting because they are usually planting corn at the end of April and in May anyway. In 2011 many farmers weren’t able to plant until June because it was so wet.
Depending on rainfall, it could be a week or so before you can expect to see farm equipment on the roads and getting into fields to plant, Byrne said.
There’s a 60 per cent chance of rain in the forecast for Thursday and then sunshine, with a high of 17 C on the weekend and a high of 21 expected by Monday.
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