Ontario's crops now mostly in the ground

Thursday, June 24, 2010

by SUSAN MANN

Ontario farmers planted more soybeans and corn this year but less wheat, according to Statistics Canada’s preliminary estimates of field crop acres released Wednesday.

In Ontario, soybean acres rose by 1.7 per cent to 2.44 million acres this year compared to 2.40 million acres in 2009.

Nationally, the total soybean seeded area reported by farmers increased eight per cent from 2009 to 3.7 million acres.

David Burroughs, head of the crop reporting unit in Statistics Canada’s agriculture division, says seeded acres of corn in Ontario increased by five per cent this year compared to 2009. A total of 1.875 million acres were planted in the spring compared to 1.785 million acres last year.

Total wheat acres decreased for the third year in a row. Wheat acres were down by 12 per cent compared to 2009. Plantings this year were 920,000 acres compared to one million acres in 2009.

Burroughs says in Ontario the principal field crops are pretty much planted. “There’s still some left, I understand, but our indications are that there’s well over 90 per cent seeded.”

For other crops, Burroughs says canola isn’t big in Ontario but planted acres increased by 55 per cent this year compared to 2009. This year 70,000 acres were planted compared to last year’s 45,000 acres.

Another crop in Ontario with a big increase in acres was dry beans. It increased by 47.4 per cent to 140,000 acres this year compared to 95,000 acres in 2009.

Horst Bohner, Ontario agriculture ministry soybean specialist, says farmers planted a little less wheat in the fall and for some areas of the province May was wet so they couldn’t plant corn unless it went it early. “So we had a bit of a shift.”

The Statistics Canada numbers don’t surprise Bohner. He says in January the ministry was predicting soybean acres to be around 2.4 million acres this year.

The June seeded acres survey of 25,200 Canadian farmers, including 5,200 from Ontario, was done from May 25 to June 3. The survey will be updated with actual seeded acres later in the year. BF