By Alani Janeke
In parts of the country, maize is beginning to germinate in the stalks, along with soybeans in the pod. At the same time, farmers anxiously await access to their fields for harvesting, as the South African Weather Service warns that more heavy rain is on the way Wednesday.
“In the 33 years I’ve been farming, I’ve never experienced a year like this. First, the rain was very late, and now it’s raining excessively. It’s been difficult. It is a season that tests your faith,” says Ryk Pretorius, regional representative of Grain SA in Mpumalanga.
He says farmers have been hoping for weeks for good sunny weather to evaporate the water from all the rain, but over the Easter weekend they only had about one day of proper sunshine.
“There are areas east of Ermelo where farmers report their soybeans are starting to germinate in the pods. It’s soaking wet everywhere.
“In some areas, the harvesters are running, but everywhere, there are signs that they have gotten stuck in the fields and had to be towed out. And the weather apps predict another 50 mm of rain for us on Wednesday.
“The situation concerns us, but you can only do what you can and just have to handle rest as it comes.”
Danie Bester, a farmer from the Balfour district in Mpumalanga, says that according to his weather apps, another 50 mm or even 70 mm of rain could fall on his farm this week. “In places, we can’t get into the lands to see if there is damage.”
Jan Botma, a farmer from the Bothaville district in the Free State, demonstrated in a video how some of the shorter-growing soybeans planted this year are starting to germinate in the pods of one field. However, he has only encountered this in one location so far.
Maize germinating
DJ van der Linde, a farmer from the Vierfontein district, photographed a maize cob on Tuesday morning in a neighbour’s field that had begun to germinate while still on the plant. “We (he and his neighbour) didn’t want to open the cob’s leaves to see what the cob itself looks like; we just threw it back into the field.”
According to Van der Linde, other farmers in their district have also reported such cobs. “One can’t help but wonder what the quality of this year’s harvest will be, especially if we continue to struggle to access the lands with the still predicted rain.”
“I’m considering how I can repair and modify the old threshing machines on the farm so that we can deliver what we do harvest.”
Van der Linde says many farmers are worried about how they will service their loans this year if they get poor harvests.
Corné Louw, senior agricultural economist and head of applied economics and member services at Grain SA, states that in certain areas, farmers report that the crops are beginning to germinate. However, these reports are not widespread, as many farmers cannot access their lands to assess the damage.
Meanwhile, the South African Weather Service has issued a warning map indicating that disruptive rainfall from a cut-off low-pressure system could begin on Wednesday, 23 April, across various parts of the summer grain region. Severe thunderstorms, disruptive rain, and localised flooding may affect areas of the Northern Cape, much of North West, the Free State, and parts of Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal.
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