An early frost and persistent rain take their toll on Ontario's processing pea crop

Thursday, July 4, 2013

by SUSAN MANN

Ontario’s processing pea crop is quite variable with some good areas while others aren’t doing very well, says Al Krueger, executive assistant with the Ontario Processing Vegetable Growers.

Some crops have been hit because of the recent rains and, prior to that, the early frost. That’s “why they plant many acres over a wide area,” he says.

It’s too early to tell how much yields are down but Krueger says preliminary estimates are they’re down by 15 to 20 per cent.

“We had frost early on and I think that damaged the crop maybe a little bit more than people expected,” he explains. “We’ve had some extreme heat” but some of the crop was mainly damaged by localized recurring rainfalls. “Things never really dried out.”

Growers have been harvesting for the past three weeks. Harvest has been progressing slowly because growers “have had to work around some of these weather issues,” he notes.

A total of 15,000 acres of peas are grown in Ontario in Kent, Elgin, Middlesex, Oxford and Lambton counties. BF