As I write this column on a beautiful summer morning, I have a little time to reflect on the madness that comes for many farmers after the snow melts. It always feels good to pull the planter out of the field knowing the seeds are in the ground for another year. 

Over the years, we have had the discussion about which season is more stressful – planting or harvest. We upgraded our drying and grain handling facilities in 2018, so my answer to this question has changed somewhat. Since our harvest efficiency has improved greatly due to these changes, we are better able to take advantage of our windows of harvest opportunity, which has been a game changer for me. It has reduced the level of stress and increased confidence (somewhat) that we will be able to get the grain out of the field in good condition before winter sets in. 

If you are a person who notices such things, you may have observed that the 2025 harvest season did not go as planned across southern Ontario, with many fields of corn standing out through the winter. While our goal is to bring the corn in before winter, I have heard reports that the corn survived well out in the snow and drying costs were greatly reduced as the corn had more time to dry naturally. 

You may wonder why we don’t just leave the corn out as a regular practice if this is the case. Modern corn hybrids have been genetically improved in many ways – one of which is the strength of the stalk, allowing the corn to better withstand the winds and snow of a Huron County winter. In spite of this, there was evidence of some stalk breakage, making it more difficult to combine and pick up as many cobs. 

There is also the risk of decreased quality of grain – including growth of various mould species, especially if the stalks break and the cobs touch the ground. Moulds can make corn toxic to livestock. Even a tiny bit in the corn sample can result in lower payments or even rejection of a whole truck load of corn. 

Another big consideration is simply workload management. There seems to be enough to do in the spring without the added pressure of completing fall work. The weather in the spring can be just as difficult as it is in the fall; we often do not have the option of working when we like – we are always working around the weather.

This spring as we waited for the ground to dry and warm up, I noticed a column written by Kim McConnell, published in the Calgary Herald, entitled “Canada’s quietest $20-billion megaproject happens every spring in agriculture.” McConnell was inducted in the Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame in 2012 and has long been a catalyst for agriculture, bringing our story to an urban audience.

As we are busy making sure our equipment is ready to go, we have all the products that we need, including seed, fertilizer, and spray, and get our fields ready for planting. It is easy to get a bit isolated and not think about what we are doing collectively. This column helped me take a step back and reflect on the efforts of everyone involved in agriculture and what a massive undertaking it actually is. 

While there are many sectors of agriculture that roll along mostly evenly regardless of the season – think dairy, poultry, and pork – cropping is almost completely seasonal, and the beef and sheep sectors also tend to have fresh crops of babies born in the spring. This means that this season is a big deal in the life of most Canadian farmers. 

McConnell’s column put some numbers to that and helped bring some perspective to how important this is – not only to those of us in agriculture, but also to society as a whole. “This annual event is so familiar that we rarely stop to think about it. But spring in Canadian agriculture is a national-scale, renewable megaproject, repeated every year, with no second chances,” he writes. 

That “no second chances” piece kind of jumped off the page for me. That is one of the reasons that spring is so stressful for farmers. We always get lots of good crop advice and recommendations about timing and temperature, but often this conflicts, changes, and much of it we can’t control anyway. 

This year the cold weather made planting decisions a bit tough – one recommendation suggested that corn seeds need 48 hours of warm weather immediately after planting, and after that they are fine. My own record keeping over the years has suggested that it is better to wait for warm soil before planting. Even if you do have a warm April and get excited to plant early – as we did last year – you run the risk of a late frost killing the plants that are more advanced and more susceptible to freezing temperatures. 

But back to McConnell’s column. He notes that there is an often-quoted number of spring seeding as an “$8 billion activity.” However, he adds to this the capital that farmers put on the table, including inputs, labour, equipment, operating credit, livestock production, and the cost of running and maintaining the high-tech modern equipment we use these days.

“The true scale becomes very clear,” he writes. “The real figure is well north of $20 billion, committed in a very short window of time by private citizens, with no guarantees… If the weather turns, markets shift or disease strikes, there is no pause button. No redo. Farmers live with the outcome for a full year.”

So yes, I’ll say that planting is a more stressful season than harvest for us here on the farm. But I hope all our readers had a successful planting season nonetheless. ◊