Heat Wave Stresses Crops

The heat wave is causing stress for crops.

Dane Froese is an oilseeds specialist with Manitoba Agriculture.

"The heat has had negative impacts on both maturation, moving crops to an earlier maturing stage, as well as stressing them out in a critical time of flowering and reproductive development," he said. "Without rain to rejuvenate the plants to them cool off, crops are doubly impacted by the high temperature stress. When they're unable to cool off, they produce stress hormones and those stress hormones cause unbalances in the plant and lead to premature ripening, flower abortion, and lack of seed set in some cases."

Froese says the heat impacts various crops differently.

"Cooler season crops will face more of a challenge. Those are our C3 crops, our cereals, our wheat, oats, barley, canola. Those tend to prefer cooler conditions and tend to thrive in those cooler, slightly wetter conditions. They're going to be facing more of a challenge right now and particularly because they're at that critical stage in their lifecycle. C4 crops are warm seasons like corn, soybeans. [They] are less likely to be impacted. They can tolerate higher temperatures, however they tolerate those higher temperatures much better when they have some moisture to cool off."

He notes yield potential has been decreasing for some time.