Southeast farmers tallying up damage following heavy hail

With a heavy storm leaving its mark on the southeast crops in the area have been one of the main recipients of heavy hail.

Farmers are hoping that the hail hits them soft enough that their crops will be able to grow well enough for the rest of the summer season.

Edgar Hammermeister, a local agrologist, chatted with farmers to see just how the southeast area fared in the storm.

"We were tracking it or watching it on the radar, starting all the way from southwest of Moosejaw, and it continued on our way. The impact on the crop is going to be very dependent on the stage of the crop. The younger the crop, the more the ability to recuperate and to try and compensate for the damage. If the crop was early seeded and well into its reproductive phase, then the damage can be permanent and significant." 

For the southeast, many of those crops east of Estevan fared better as they were seeded later than their western counterparts.

"There's a gradient there where I think from Weyburn and west of Estevan things started off earlier and so there was more of a vulnerability in that direction and as you come east of Estevan to the Alameda-Oxbow area, things were generally a little bit later, just a little bit more moisture, a little cooler conditions. So it is a little bit of a delayed start and that's the gradient of damage that there likely will be, but it will be very spotty."

Hammermeister says that in his immediate area, southwest of Alameda, his yard has little damage, with crop damage estimated at less than 10 percent.

Even though that's a good sign he thinks the damage could introduce a new vulnerability into the crop through a delayed maturity.

"The vulnerability going forward is, well, what's the rest of the growing season going to be like, and will the crop have time to finish before we have a damaging frost and then that's just going to put a lot of stress on our minds here."

More western areas seem to be doing a bit worse with a heavy wind likely affecting many buildings.

"In the Frobisher area and west toward Beinfait to there, a number of conversations I've had, a lot of building damage, a lot of grain bins tipped over. Must have been a mini plow wind of some kind to come through and do a lot of building damage and from my land that's toward Frobisher it looks like a poorly set lawn mower went across the canola. At this point, it is not looking very good, but we'll have to give it a couple of days and see what will happen."

Even though plenty of windscreens have been shattered in vehicles across the southeast, Hammermeister says that farm equipment is usually made of sturdier stuff.

"I know there's been vehicle damage, but the equipment is typically constructed of more robust materials than what cars and trucks are, but it's not to say that with the size of hail that Estevan experienced that you couldn't have had damage done to the GPS globes on the sprayers, which would have would be very problematic for farmers to try and get any work done because if it did crack the plastic then moisture could have got into the electronics and then it's an expensive repair."

Hammermeister says he feels for all the farmers heavily impacted by this hail and is relieved to hear there are no reported injuries.