Excellent fall weather has allowed rapid progress on the Ontario soybean harvest, with many farmers now switching to corn, according to the latest weekly update from Grain Farmers of Ontario on Thursday.
Corn
Corn harvest is ongoing across most of the province, with an estimated 10% of the crop in the bin. Dry-down in corn has been rapid. Dry-down is all due to relative humidity; in recent weeks, there has been low humidity, which has really helped take moisture points off corn in the field (and in the bin for those using air dryers on lower moisture corn).
Soybeans
The soybean harvest is getting closer to the end, with an estimated 90 to 100% complete across the province, with many finishing harvest earlier than normal due to the incredible weather received.
Cereals
Winter wheat planting for the majority of the province has edged past the optimum planting date. Agricorp 2025 fall planting deadlines have also passed for some areas of the province, with others approaching shortly.
In the latest update of his weekly crop hotline on Wednesday, Real Agriculture agronomist Peter Johnson reported some huge corn yields, with some April-planted corn in the province coming off at 260-270 bu/acre, and at 17-20% moisture. However, he also noted a significant amount of variability even within one small field on his own farm near Lucan, which was planted into less-than-ideal conditions and experienced summer drown outs. Yields in the field ranged from a low of 39 bu/acre, all the way up to 290 bu, he said.
Johnson also previously reported that one grower in the Delaware area saw soybean yields as high as 96 bu/acre, while another in Norfolk was at 80 bu.
As for winter wheat, Johnson said excellent fall planting conditions in September and early October could lead to a record Ontario acreage for harvest in 2025. Ontario growers planted an estimated just over 1 million acres to winter wheat last fall, down slightly from 1.1 million a year earlier, according to Statistics Canada. The high for Ontario winter wheat acres was achieved in 2008 at 1.275 million.
