Some crops likely damaged by record-breaking frost

The record-breaking frost that some areas of the province received overnight Monday and early Tuesday morning had the potential to do some damage to crops.

Shannon Friesen is the crops extension specialist with the Ministry of Agriculture.

She says she is expecting calls to start coming in as farmers assess their crops.

“Certainly we may see some damage out there, maybe in some of the later-seeded crops or any crops that were actually still green,” said Friesen.

She says what frost does is target the water in plant cells, then breaks up those cells and freezes them.

“So what we may see in some of those crops that hadn’t dried down yet — we may have some damage,” said Friesen.

She says it depends on how long the frost is, how cold it gets and if it was cloudy right before. Whether there was moisture, the stage of the crop and many other things also are in play when it comes to frost damage.

“We may see some issues where it did dip really deep,” said Friesen. “We are hopeful it wasn’t a lot but we are expecting some damage from that (frost).”

Friesen says some farmers may not even know what kind of damage there could be until their harvest is completed.

“We may see some issues as well, but it depends on the next couple of weeks and what the weather is going to be like and just how quickly (farmers) can get that crop off,” she said.

Friesen says even if there is some damage, in terms of harvest progress, frost isn’t actually a huge detriment to the overall process since it isn’t moisture.

“You probably remember last September as it was wet and cool all the time and harvest just really took its time,” Friesen said. “This year, fortunately, if we do have many weeks of warm and dry conditions ahead of us we should be able to get out there and get a lot of the crop off.”