'An exceptional year' for P.E.I. corn farmers

It's been a challenging couple of years for corn farmers on P.E.I., but this harvest season things are looking up. 

At Colin MacNevin's family farm in DeSable, P.E.I., it's one of the strongest crops in years. 

"Some of the yield we've done here, it looks like it's going to be one of the best crops I've ever grown. So we're pretty excited to see when the combine goes through," MacNevin said. 

With last year's dry summer, and post-tropical storm Dorian the year for that, crops suffered. 

"It was a disaster, long story short," MacNevin said regarding Dorian. 

This year's weather was much better, he said.

"We had really great moisture this year. September was beautiful, we had really great heat and the crop was able to finish the way it would finish," MacNevin said. 

Oceanbrae Farms in Belmont, Lot 16, has been growing corn for three decades. It's typically turned into feed for animals, but this season they have extra leftovers.

"We had ample amounts of forages," said Matt Barrett. "So then when we came to corn harvest it was a huge crop of corn, so we chose to go this route so we could buy less commodities this winter as a grain source."

At Randy Drenth's farm, his crop is also flourishing. 

"It's a lot nicer. It's encouraging for sure. I guess there's always opportunities where you wish it could have been better but it's a lot of fun harvesting good crops," Drenth said. 

He harvests his corn as grain. 

"The combine will take the ears of the plant and shell the kernels off of the cob, so we will collect the grain. The rest of the plant will be left in the field and that will decompose and help build the organic matter and improve our soil health." 

"Good inputs, good management, good weather," Drenth said are keys to a good corn crop.