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Edda ne 0% HE Pai 1 dk Lh EI PRIA "A Family Tradition for 131 Years" PORT PERRY STAR - Tuesday, October 21 1997 - 11 Temperatures dipping below zero now Cold nights signal end of disappointing season for farmers By Chris Hall Port Perry Star Temperatures consis- tently dipping below zero during the evening have signalled the end of the growing season for most farmers, says a local agri- culture official. Neil Moore, a crops spe- cialist with Port Perry's Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs (OMAFRA) office, says that the warm weather farmers hoped the fall would bring never materialized and that, along with frost popping up everywhere, pretty much spells the end of the 1997 season. "We had hoped so much that we would get a warm September and early October like we had last year to bail us out, but that didn't happen," he said last week. "We hoped to keep the temperatures up so that the frost would stay off the ground until around the middle of October, but that just didn't happen. Temperatures dropped to around minus 2 degrees in some pockets last week, and that means killing frost, said Mr. Moore. Elsewhere the mercury has dipped to the freezing mark or a degree below zero, but it's only a matter of time before all the pock- ets experience a killing frost. While September did- n't bring terrible weather, it just wasn't what farm- ers hoped for, said Mr. Moore. After a late, wet spring and an arid sum- mer, they hoped for extended warm tempera- tures in September to catch up. Early crops are in rather good shape, and will probably yield rea- sonably good corn, but those planted later in the year will be affected by the cool, frosty conditions. However dim the out- look appears now, Mr. Moore says that the hopes Caring for Children 18 months to 9 years Utica Community DayCare Pre-School Spaces Available * Qualified E.C.E. Staff of farmers have actually improved since they planted their fields six months ago. "When everything was planted in May we thought that only 60 per cent would be successful, but it looks like things could be better than we thought," he said. "We anticipate up to 70, and maybe even 75, per cent of the crops in this area will make it. Most of them look to be in good shape." Soybean crops in the area have either fallen below average growth, or just at the average, said Mr. Moore. Surprisingly, though, farmers who have a decent shot at harvest- ing their beans are getting five bushels per acre more than they originally expected. Farmers are also shift- ing their time to their haying operations, trying to make the best of what time, and crop, they have left. "Farmers continued haying through September and into early October this year," said Mr. Moore. "They're quite busy right now because they're trying to make up for what they missed dur- ing the summer." Winter wheat was planted in late September and early October, and looks good in its early stages. Over all, Mr. Moore describes the 1997 grow- ing season as a trying one for the local farmers: "It was very frustrating this year. We had a slow start because it was hard to get the crops in, and then we hoped we'd have good luck in the summer, which did- n't happen. We were then hoping for a September like we had in '96, and that never happened either. "We also had two droughts this summer that didn't help the farm- ers much. Usually we only get about one dry spell a season and this year we had a couple.The fields that planted early look good but the ones that didn't make it into the ground on time didn't seem to get enough time, and that's going to hurt." AEE ENEE].) \ 8, ld . 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