2024 9th Annual Great ON Yield Tour
August 12 - August 23, 2024
Welcome to the 2024 9th Annual Great ON Yield Tour.
The 2024 planting season got off to a delayed start, not just in Ontario but in the U.S. Midwest and Western Canada due to too much moisture as continuous rains brought in all the precipitation that was missing during the subdued winter. Planting delays due to wet conditions pushed forwards crop development as well. Since the second week of June, there were forecasts for a “heat dome”, with a high pressure ridge, to rest over the eastern part of North America, encompassing the Eastern Corn Belt (ECB) in the U.S. and Ontario in Canada. The extent and intensity of the heat dome is still evolving. With the heatwaves in North America, weather experts are pointing to compound, concurrent heat extremes across the world, including the heatwaves in the Middles East, China, the Mediterranean, Russia, etc. with many of those regions seeing or likely to see record high temperatures.
With the 2024 Ontario planting season coming to a close as of the start of July Ontario has lost 10% of the corn acres to 2 million and 55 of the soybean acres for a total of 3.150 million acres. The biggest corn county Essex looks the worst as the heavy clay soils could never dry out! (Please see chart below)
Will “rain make grain” and will it be the 4th consecutive year of above average yields? The lighter ground soils will most likely be the best yields in 2024 and we will find out soon as we have the data from prior years to determine if another record is possible.
Thank you to all scouts, farmers, hosts and sponsors! As always, we look forward to meeting and speaking with you at our popular final events. The Eastern event will be held on August 22nd in Chesterville at Derks Elevator and the final Western Event will be on the August 29th, 2024, at Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show.
Be sure to follow us on Twitter @FarmsMarketing using hashtag #ONYield24 to see photos posted throughout the tour.
