Canola on the Camas

Lack of rain, we are dry. Camas prairie farmer Tom Mosman runs a large farm outside of Craigmont. He's spraying canola and says the crop’s in trouble. They’ve had very little rain this this year. We had some decent deep moisture, but I seeded some of this canola on the 17th of April and we've got less than a quarter of an inch since then. They average 22 inches of rainfall in the Rolling Hill country. This year, just a fraction of normal. And although the fields look lush, the canola is stunted, dull and not grown. Well the drought's killing us. Everything’s slow coming out of the ground. There's still a little moisture in the ground on these spring crops. But if we don't get rain soon it isn't going to be pretty. What's Plan B at this point? What are you going to do? Wait for next year? But Mosman says they can't give up on the crop, they have to bring the crop in to meet insurance safety net requirements, When you're dryland farmer, you get what you get and typically, we're probably 80 bushel, 70-80 bushel dryland wheat, which is pretty good for dry land wheat. Last year it rained June and we had great crops. This year, you know, if we average 40 on the fall crop, I think 40 or 50 will be doing good and the price of wheat gone up. Everybody has federal crop insurance anymore. So that helps a lot. With wheat and canola prices through the roof, delivering a crop this year means good money. But farmers say no crop is disastrous.