Overly dry June conditions are now a distant memory for Ontario producers.
As the map below shows, producers in the province have traded one weather problem for another, with drought-like conditions in June transitioning to well above normal rainfall in many areas this month. The area from Windsor extending east to about London, and a pocket east of Toronto between about Oshawa and Kingston have been particularly hard-hit, seeing as much as 200% of normal rainfall during the past 30 days.
The biggest impact of the wet weather has been on the quality of the winter wheat crop, which is now in the process of being harvested. Those fields caught by showers have seen grain quality degrade, including a sharp decline in falling numbers in some cases. The wet weather has also sparked concern about the start of disease development in the corn crop. In soybeans, the July rain – after a dry month of June - is producing a heavier canopy, which could eventually lead to a floppy top.
