Farmers in southeastern Manitoba continue to wait things out as last weekend's rain has kept combines idle.

Speaking at Meals On The Farm, a contest on AM1250 and COUNTRY 107.7 FM, Shane Barkman of Barkdale Farms near Steinbach says this year they are growing approximately 5,500 acres of corn, sunflowers, wheat, canola and soybeans. He notes their winter wheat never made it through the winter and so they re-seeded it as spring wheat.

According to Barkman, they got off to a reasonably good start in spring.

"It was dry, we could seed and get the crop in the ground," he recalls. "And got a few nice timely rains after."

Barkman says as the summer progressed it seemed every time a rain cloud would roll in, it would dry up before reaching their fields. He notes a few more rain events this summer would have been good, noting the dry weather lead to insect problems, forcing them to spray fields for grasshoppers and Lygus bugs.

With rain looming last week, Barkman says they were able to take off all of their wheat just in time.

"We got off just the day before it started raining which was perfect because quality is always a concern for wheat, especially wheat," notes Barkman. "If it rains on it one or too many times then all of a sudden your grade gets degraded and you end up having a lower price per bushel. So it was very fortunate we got it off in time."

And Barkman says the results were not all bad.

"We were maybe pleasantly surprised a little bit that it did as good as it did considering," says Barkman. "But that's how it goes."

He notes they are hoping to start their canola harvest next week.

"But it does look quite thin, so we're not too optimistic," he shares. "But we'll see how it goes."

Meanwhile, working in an industry that is so weather dependent does not seem to wane the enthusiasm of Barkman.

"I love the variety," he says. "Many other jobs have variety but probably not quite as much as farming."