HomeMy WebLinkAboutHuron Expositor, 2007-06-27, Page 3The Huron Expositor • June 27, 2007 Page 3
News
Local corn, wheat and hay crops desperately
need rain, says OMAFRA crops specialist
From Page 1
said last Wednesday, "that got three
quarters of an inch. Then I drove to
the next concession and they had
essentially zero."
"What we wanted was
a one inch general rain
that everybody got," he
said.
Johnson said that as
far as corn goes, the
amount of moisture
local growers have
varies. Some have had
a good amount of mois-
ture while others have
had very little.
"The corn is just get-
ting to the stage where
it's into the high water
demand, or the rapid growth
in many locations," he said.
The crop specialist said some corn
that was planted earlier has been
using a lot of moisture, but a lot of
it has just reached that phase now.
"When it's going from knee high to
tassel, it uses up to a third of an
inch of water per acre per day."
Johnson said that for most of the
area, fields won't be severely dry
yet, but there will be some that are
"quite dry", even after
last Tuesday's rain.
Others will be in
decent shape.
"For the guys that
are quite dry, the corn
is going to pine apple,
or spike up," he said.
"That's its defense
mechanism. That's
what it does to try to
conserve moisture."
He said that when it
does that at this stage,
j it's not "horrendous,"
but the closer the corn
'Up until this
point, crops
have had an
excellent
start,'--
OMAFRA crops
specialist
Peter Johnson
phase,
gets to silking, the more
damage the lack of moisture will
cause.
"It depends where they're at right
now," he said last week, "but for a
lot of people, it's probably three
weeks away."
Johnson said the dry weather has-
n't been much of a problem for soy
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beans or edible beans.
"The other two crops that are get-
ting hammered quite hard where
there isn't moisture are both the
wheat crop and the hay crop."
He said that farmers are looking
at the second cut for the hay crop
and that it doesn't grow back very
well without moisture.
Of the wheat crop, Johnson said,
"We are seeing some flag leaf rolling
up and firing up on the droughty
knolls."
Johnson explained this is another
defense mechanism to conserve
moisture.
"The wheat crop is in need of rain
quite badly."
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