Every time we received a good rain, my dad used to say, “that was a million dollar rain”. The meaning of that old statement finally sunk into my slow old brain the third week of July 2018. After a month of very dry and hot weather that made vacationers happy, our neighbours were noticing some very troubling things.
Reduced hay yields of both first and second left winter hay stocks frightfully low. While driving through the valley, we noticed fields of corn that looked more like fields of pineapples with their leaves rolled up tightly and pointed towards the sky as if praying for rain. Hay fields, pastures, and lawns stopped growing, turned brown, and were starting to die. Farmers stopped cutting the thin hay crops they had for fear of the dry weather and hot sun killing the bare brown hayfield if it was cut off. People stopped cutting their brown dying lawns and lawn maintenance companies were laying off staff. Some rural residents were buying truck loads of potable water to dump into their wells because of fear that the well would go dry.

Urban residents were receiving notices from their municipalities to reduce water use and even stop watering lawns. Gardeners’ rain barrels ran dry and they were scrambling to find water to keep their plants alive. All sale barns were noticing increasing numbers of animals for sale because farmers were beginning to reduce herd size. Farmers were looking seriously for standing or baled hay to buy. Farmers and farm associations were writing to MPPs and crop insurance boards to warn of a serious drought coming. The extended period without rain allowed insects such as army worms to hatch and they began to destroy crops already distressed by lack of rain. Some farmers even took army worm infested grain fields off as forage before the worms destroyed the entire field. It didn’t make sense to spray insecticide on a field already compromised by dry weather. Dry weather and plummeting grain prices were making farmers very nervous and they stopped buying or upgrading their equipment. Stock prices of farm machinery companies were dropping. Local machinery dealers noticed less traffic come through their doors.
Ground water tables had remained high since the wet spring of 2017 and hence plant root systems were quite shallow. After a month of dry weather, the water table went down enough that most plant roots could no longer reach moisture. Those who irrigate know that it takes 27,154 gallons of water to put one inch of water on an acre of land. Many farms today encompass hundreds or even thousands of acres. The cost of pumping and irrigating is an unprofitable task for most farms.
After receiving the first couple rains in late July, corn fields began to look more like corn and less like fields of pineapple, and all farmers slept better. It took a couple more rains before lawns, pastures, and hay fields turned from brown to green. For the majority of grain fields, the grain will be short and there will be very little straw. The rain, even though too late to grow a tall plant, will help to fill the grain heads and allow farmers to at least get enough grain to pay for combining the crop. Any grain field that was cut for forage will of course, not produce grain or straw. Corn fields will be shorter than normal but the rains will help the cobs to be plumper with more grain. The needed rains will help hay fields to recover and hopefully produce a greatly needed third cut of hay. Some corn fields that were planted for grain corn will probably be cut for silage this fall to help make up for lower hay yields.
Yes, this was a million dollar rain that saved taxpayers untold millions in crop insurance payouts, got lawn maintenance people back to work, got farmers’ spirits up and encouraged them to reinvest in equipment, facilities, and everything that people sell. For those who invest in the stock market, any company that produces what farmers buy will see share prices recover. How many millions that this rain meant will probably never be calculated but we should all go to church next Sunday.

Chris Judd is a farmer in Clarendon on land that hasbeen in his family for generations.
gladcrest@gmail.com