A Carrot River area farmer is looking for warmer, drier condition to push harvest into full gear.
Spencer Maxwell has swathed all of his canola and was not affected by a minus 3 degree frost early Wednesday.
The extreme northeast corner of grainbelt is coming off a very wet 2017. Maxwell was unable to harvest much of his land due to flooding.
Drier conditions have helped this year.
“We were seeding corner-to-corner and going through holes that we hadn’t been through in a decade almost. Compared to last year when we hardly had a crop, it looks good to us this year. It’s probably going to be an average year, some quarters are better than others.”
Maxwell has 15 percent of his combining done, mainly fall seeded crops. He is hoping for some warmer temperatures, but the forecast isn’t overly promising.
“I always call it a ‘flip a coin forecast’ because they usually hover around that 40 to 60 percent range (chance of precipitation) so you really don’t know what its going to do. It tends to change throughout the day too. I always say it’s best to look out the window in the morning and go from there.”
Maxwell was planning to do some combining on Friday, even if the moisture content is a above ideal levels.
“It’s that time of year when you just want to get things in the bin. We are running some stuff through the dryer, maybe taking it a little tougher and blowing some air on it. We’re doing what we can.”
(Above photo taken by Cavalier Agro)