December 15th is an important date for Ontario grain growers.
It's the deadline for corn and soybean growers to report their final yields to Agricorp for crop insurance. Spokesman Murray Emke says that includes the number of acres of crop left in the fields, so far unharvested.
Emke expects Agricorp will be carrying coverage on a significant amount of this year's crop over the winter unless there's a major change in the weather. He suggests if we get rid of at least some of the snow and the ground freezes it would be a big help to growers trying to get the crops in.
Emke says the corn and soybean situation has also created problems for the winter wheat crop.
Because of delays in getting those crops off, and some wet fields even with the harvest was done, there's been a significant reduction in winter wheat planted acres this fall.
Emke says Agricorp has insured about 500 thousand acres of winter wheat for the 2015 growing season, down about 25 per cent from last year.
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He says December 15th is when insured producers need to report what they've managed to harvest - and what acres remain to be harvested.
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The problem is getting it harvested, given the slow growing season and the early winter weather we've been getting.
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Emke says some farmers intended to plant more wheat than they managed to get into the ground.
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