Farmers’ Outlook
Posted May 9, 2011 02:01:35 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
First it was the wettest April ever, now it’s going to be a hot dry summer — what are local farmers thinking about this bizarre start to the growing season?
Trevor Herrle-Braun, co-owner of Herrle’s Country Farm Market, tells 570 News with a wet cold start to the season, he’s a couple weeks behind the usual schedule planting his own vegetables.
But he adds it’s hard to be discouraged this early, and he’s very happy with the summer forecast.
Herrle-Braun says the outlook for a hot, dry summer is “an incredible forecast, we’re excited about that.”
And he’s hoping there won’t be any kind of early-May frost because “that would really damage things.”
Herrle-Braun says he knows some Norfolk County farmers expecting their first strawberries around the end of May.
He expects his own strawberries will come mid-June.
Greg Stewart, an expert on corn with the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food, and Rural Affairs, says farmers want to plant today, or at least by May 15th, following a late start due to the wet start to the Spring.
He says it’s critical to get corn planted now so it is tall enough to benefit from the summer’s biggest dose of sunlight in late-June, otherwise all the sunlight will just hit the ground.
Herrle says last year was a phenomenal growing season, this year’s is looking more normal.
