London Area farmers ride the rainfall rollercoaster Days after the most recent rainfall, water remains pooled on a bean field on Aug. 20, 2024. (Gerry Dewan/CTV News London) Share Area farmers continue to ride the rainfall rollercoaster, as rain events have moved across our region throughout the summer.
Agriculture experts say crops are going to need a break in order to limit the impacts of the deluge. Pearson International Airport reported a record 128.3 millimeters of rain on Saturday.
Streets and highways in Mississauga filled with rain, stranding many drivers. Agronomist Pete Johnson said the rains didn't just take a toll on the roads, "Some of these storms are dropping three, four inches of rain – 100mm of rain – within 45 minutes. The soil just can't tolerate that.
” Johnson hosts the popular podcast Wheat Pete’s Word, part of the Real Agriculture information service. Looking out on pools of water on a field near Thorndale on Tuesday morning, Johnson told CTV News, “All the water runs to the low spots. It sits there and ponds.
Once it ponds 48 hours, the crop is dead." Flooding has wiped out a number of plants in a Thorndale-area field, seen on Aug. 20, 2024.
(Gerry Dewan/CTV News London) Johnson stressed that heavy rainfalls take an immediate toll, "If it's a big rain drop when it hits bare soil, some people equate that to an atomic bomb hitting the soil. It just explodes and really impacts the fine soil particles at the surface.” He notes that bean crops ha.