Ontario’s provincial crop insurance agency has extended its planting deadline for sugar beets to Sunday.
Agricorp on Wednesday announced the extension for sugar beets “in all areas” to June 5, from the previous planting deadline of May 25, for farmers to put in their beet crops and still qualify for production insurance.
The agency on Wednesday also announced an extension for growers of processing peas in southwestern Ontario’s Kent County, to June 5.
Previously, for growers in Kent County’s Romney and Tilbury East townships, and in Essex County, the planting deadline for processing peas was May 24, and for all other Kent County townships, June 1.
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The planting deadline for peas in all other counties remains June 15.
Guelph-based Agricorp said it has “no plans to extend other deadlines at this time,” but added it will monitor the situation “as the weather and planting conditions evolve.”
The agency said it only extends planting deadlines “very rarely, on a crop-by-crop basis” in circumstances such as “exceptionally adverse weather conditions.”
During the week ending May 31, Windsor and London reported 83.2 and 45.4 millimetres (3.3 and 1.8 inches) of rain, respectively, compared to 30-year averages of 18.9 and 21 mm for those southwestern areas for that week. Most crop-growing regions of the province accumulated above-average rainfalls in May.
