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Post by Oatking on Jul 25, 2021 7:38:22 GMT -6
Thought maybe some of the older guys could share some stories about the differences or similarities between the two severe droughts.
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Post by carlos on Jul 25, 2021 7:51:21 GMT -6
88 will be way worse. Personally we were still seeding with discerns and drill so that was a big difference. If I can remember correctly,we didnt get as much rain as we have had this year. I remember parking a tandem truck in the middle of a qr. and if we were lucky it would be full when it was finished. I was 22 then. I dont think we had over a month with 30+temps then either, would have to check weather records.
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Post by garyfunk on Jul 25, 2021 9:05:27 GMT -6
88 was pretty bad. Absolutely no moisture May or June. Got 50 bales hay off of a quarter section of a 3yr old alfalfa stand. Got over 500 off the same field in 89. Hopefully that rebound is the same this time around - not like in 01, 02, 03 where it just kept getting worse (I've got a few dugouts that are now underwater in some sloughs to prove it.
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Post by meskie on Jul 25, 2021 9:24:03 GMT -6
I was talking to a few older guys and they said 81 was the worst crops they had.
I started farming in 01. My crops would be similar yields to this year. 02 was ugly here. No rain till end of august then it wouldn’t stop what wasn’t combined regrew and made a mess. We cut lots of silage in September because of it.
It was actually pretty dry in 98-99-2000 around here also but we got rain at the right times to save the crop.
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Post by cptusa on Jul 25, 2021 11:01:57 GMT -6
I wasn't old enough to really remember 88 other then dad wasn't in the best mood during harvest. Right now we're drier then 2012 I think though the crick through my pasture isn't quite at the low of that year yet, but it's only July.
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Post by northernfarmer on Jul 25, 2021 13:47:18 GMT -6
I could certainly be wrong but the year 1981 was mentioned and that had been an unusually hot summer here and up until 2006 ( which I still really question having happened ) had been the hottest recorded temperature of 34.5c in early August of that year and I looked up the recorded rain fall for that year ( although for GP and not here on the farm ) for May/June/July and compared it to what I did get this year and I had 2/3 of the rain this year then that year. Certainly the crops were not great that year but looking at the mess of canola this year with extremely short crop to so much of the stems having been heat blasted when they were flowering so few pods or malformed pods are on crops here and so the yield which is yet to be determined will undoubtedly be far lower then even the crappy stand would give it credit for. Wheat, good question with that but I've felt heads that were flat so no filling at all and its hard to say what the ones that have filled will be like come harvest. The rain I have had this year from the beginning of May to now after a low snow fall winter is 3.1 inches and combined with above all time recorded record temps for various days as we hit that 41.5c and being that this heat started in later June and already dry ground it never had a chance.
I can't say for sure but could have been 1981 that heading down to southern Sask on the number 4, the rosetown area was just baked with fried crops that I doubt were worth pulling into the field with a combine. Like I said its possible it was not that year in Sask.
1988, it appears we were flooded out if anything in the summer from the volume of rain fall I saw listed as we had twice the rain just in one month then we had this year in three months. Getting flooded out here has been far more of the issue over the years vs this extreme dry condition.
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Post by Oatking on Jul 25, 2021 16:41:04 GMT -6
We are going on year four of dryer than normal years out of my 25. I wonder whats left in the tank. I thought last year was sucked dry but still managed to get a crop this year. I am sitting at 6.1 inches since seeding and most of that was in may and june. Areas west of Rosenort are in that 1 inch to 2 inch since seeding. a HUGE AREA from brunkild up to the interlake is a diasaster. The wheat looks the best but I wondered if the heat has burnt the heads. Very , very bad crops in that path. Guys were talking 4-7 bushel canola .
I was wondering how some farms can make all there equipment payments on a year like this . Do dealers help them out in a year like this or is it a situation of boom or bust.
I think this year if you have grain to deliver you will not have to wait in line at the elevator for long.
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Post by cptusa on Jul 25, 2021 18:52:21 GMT -6
I hear of a few guys around here that had a fair amount of corn contracted for fall delivery in 2020, ended up destroying corn after derecho, rolled contracts to fall 2021 for a fee and are hung delivering a majority if the 2021 crop in the $3.50-4 range instead of $5+. If they get shorted due to drought that's going to hurt.
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Post by SWMan on Jul 25, 2021 21:23:01 GMT -6
Last two years here have been record low rainfall on this farm since we have been keeping records, although this year is not over and we got some nice rain last week that saved the crop. Dad says the late 80's(I think 88 and 89 were the driest years?) had more rainfall than we got last year. Big difference back then was the amount of tillage being done, usually a couple passes in fall and a couple in spring. He recalls neighbors getting sub 10 bushel wheat and at that point he was minimum till so fall banding and direct seeding in spring, so his crops were maybe 15-20 bushels which wasn't a total disaster at the time.
Fast forward to today and last fall when it was obvious we had nothing in the tank I did absolutely no tillage, even zero-tilled my soybeans and I think it paid off so far to have the straw cover.
As I recall the other main difference was that in the 80's we actually got snow in the winter, no such luck here since the epic snowstorm on thanksgiving of 2019. Fields bare all last winter with zero runoff, never seen that before.
I'm just amazed at how long a crop can hang in there with no rain and very little in the dirt, must be dew at night keeping it going sometimes.
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Post by prairieboy on Jul 25, 2021 23:01:33 GMT -6
I have been looking for hard data on the 88 drought specifically for southern MB to compare with this year. Can't find anything. Environment Canada's numbers don't seem to go back that far. The veterans around here seem to think this is worse.
I'm still not sure on the whole tillage thing. A lot of different scenarios can happen. For example we deep tilled some heavy rolling ground last fall. This allowed us to get on at the beginning of April and put oats in. We then had 4" in 7 days in June with almost nothing since. A lot of that rain in June ran off but very little did on those oat fields due to good water infiltration and an oat stand that was starting to get established. Zero tilled fields beside us were seeded later and the ground was quite hard actually with a lot of run off. But this is just one scenario. Weather doesn't follow your plans.
At this point the oats look like our best crop with all the late crops like corn fading fast with no substantial moisture in weeks.
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Post by serffarmer on Jul 25, 2021 23:11:19 GMT -6
Never seen it dry like this in our area. Storm after storm splits and goes around. Radar shows purple over us but only get a few spits or usually nothing. I don’t want to be seen as complaining because lots of guys have it worse but just so unusual for us. Always excess moisture here but not this year. Barley is burnt right up. If all the leaves are burnt off will the heads fill at all? Have no experience with these conditions. Tried to roll my fall malt contract into feed but they won’t do it. Be surprised if barley weighs more then 30 lbs. Older guys here say the 80’s were hot like this but always caught enough showers to get something.
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Post by kenmb on Jul 26, 2021 7:21:17 GMT -6
88 wasn't the only dry year, 86 and 87 were quite dry here too. 2002 and probably 03 were fairly dry but what I remember most about those years was the grasshoppers, they cleaned the leaves off the caragans in many places. The late 80s we sprayed for hoppers too. The low spots yielded well in the dry years but we didn't get a straight cut header till probably mid 2000s so everything prior to was swathed. And with a low yield area in a field what did grow had no stubble to support the swath so that little bit of crop was laid on the dirt and lost.
From what I remember was financially the early 2000s were the worst because grain prices were near the bottom if a guy looked at a span of say 50 years when compared to cost of production.
Late 80s were when a remember chem fallow being adopted here. It was a way to conserve moisture. That then led to the same principle being adapted at seeding time.
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Post by carlos on Jul 26, 2021 8:32:12 GMT -6
Oh yes, forgot about the grasshoppers in the late 80's. Remember Davidson Aerospray setting up here cause we had an airstrip. Everyone including the r.m. were spraying. Remember had to use half tons on the roads to use as his markers,or had his paper markers.
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Post by carlos on Jul 26, 2021 9:06:14 GMT -6
Oh yes, forgot about the grasshoppers in the late 80's. Remember Davidson Aerospray setting up here cause we had an airstrip. Everyone including the r.m. were spraying. Remember had to use half tons on the roads to use as his markers,or had his paper markers.
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Post by Albertabuck on Jul 26, 2021 12:59:38 GMT -6
Guess some of us don't have to go back too far to when things weren't good...between grasshoppers, water and drought, six of the last eight years in this area have sucked. But you keep going. I know the Peace area been similar.
As for how bad things can get, how many of you not combine anything in the past two years and coming up on the third? You think one year is bad, wanna trade?
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