Since Tryg Koch started his business, Heritage Custom Farming, in Kalispell 18 years ago, producing crops such as winter wheat, spring wheat and canola, he says this year was his third worst crop in history.
Kalispell saw record heat over the summer, with an average of 3.9 degrees hotter than normal and two 101-degree days between June 30 and Sept. 22, according to the National Weather Service.
“It was a very bad year,” Koch said. “Even the irrigated crops were 15 to 20% below average and dry land crops were 40 to 60% less than an average year.”
On average, Koch’s dry land wheat crop produces 64 bushels an acre, but this summer only produced a 40-bushel average.
Jessica Torrion, a field crop physiologist at the Northwestern Agricultural Research Center in Kalispell, says there were other factors in addition to the drought conditions and record heat impacting crop yields.
Between high daytime temperatures early in the summer, smoky skies and rain at inopportune times, canola and wheat crops did not fare well. While 90-degree temperatures usually cause canola flowers to abort, Torrion says smoke was the main culprit this summer, making it difficult to dry crops.
But even with record high temperatures, drought conditions don’t compare to 2015, Torrion says, which saw barely an inch of rain in June compared to two inches in 2021.
“It was too hot and too dry,” said Derek Krueger, a canola and wheat producer in the Flathead. “Then harvest time came and it started raining. It’s been a battle.”
Krueger uses irrigation for his crops, but he says it’s unrealistic to use that much water on that much acreage every day.
To mitigate these challenges, Torrion tells farmers to reduce their farm input costs by planting fewer seeds on dry land farms.
“When you plant less and there are fewer plants in the ground, the plant makes more tillers or the canola will make more branches,” Torrion said. “It’s easy for them to breathe or and it’s able to compensate for lesser population. If you plant more, your yield is the same. My suggestion is if there’s a drought, you plant less and you can compensate.”
Both Krueger and Koch use no-till drills and less fertilizer to conserve moisture while using different crop varieties each year to mitigate heat and drought conditions.
“You’re going to have to figure out how to farm if this weather continues,” Koch said. “You just can’t put as much fertilizer in and there’s a lot of what-ifs.”
“The beauty of farming is I just had the third worst crop and I’m planting winter wheat right now,” Koch added. “Farmers are probably the biggest optimists out there. Next year’s crops are going to be better, I just know it.”
Despite poor crop yields, Torrion says canola prices were high this year due to the low supply.
“My hope is that price compensates for yield loss,” Torrion said.
Vegetable farmers in the Flathead saw different results than commodity producers this summer, but they used significantly more water than normal.
At North Shore Farm on Flathead Lake, Ted Wycall says the heat made many of his crops thrive, but this summer was far more labor intensive between constantly running water and irrigation system repair.
“We basically had to keep irrigation going every waking hour,” Wycall said. “Running water or managing water literally from the minute I get out of bed and running three to four cycles a day. You can’t go anywhere, you have to be here to keep the water running at all times.”
Aside from the extra labor, Wycall says the heat were beneficial for many of the plant varieties. But certain vegetable varieties that need steady moisture, like carrots, beets and lettuce, failed to germinate.
“We plant those every single week and we learned very quickly if we missed a day of water,” Wycall said.
Wycall and his wife, Julia, are preparing for another drought and heat wave next summer, but they are also preparing for every type of weather event.
“It just seems unpredictable from year to year,” Wycall said.