By Brent Bosker

Wild rice crop decimated by rain

Aug 12, 2011 | 6:30 AM

As water levels continue rising in Northern Saskatchewan, hopes of harvesting a wild rice crop are sinking for some growers in the La Ronge area.

Growers there estimate that only 10 to 20 per cent of this year’s crop will be harvested because of record-high water levels caused by heavy rain this summer.

“My lakes are completely wiped out. I was expecting about 300,000 to 400,000 pounds,” said Lynn Riese, manager of Riese's Canadian Lake Wild Rice near La Ronge, who figures the wash out will cost him a quarter of a million dollars.

He said he’s never seen conditions this bad in 50 years and was expecting to harvest a bumper crop before the rain drowned everything out.

“We had real good germination in the spring. There was a lot of rice (that) came up because the water was low and it was warm weather.”

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But it all changed in July, when the rain raised lakes by several feet, he said.

Riese isn’t alone. The deluge has also decimated the crops on the Lac La Ronge First Nation.

“The Hall Lake area, one of our bigger production areas doesn’t look like we’re going to get anything off there this year.” said Terry Helary, general manager of Northern Lights Foods which is owed by the band and is the largest producer of lake harvested wild rice in Canada.

We have lakes that have some wild rice, but for the most part it’s not looking like a good crop, Helary said.

Despite what looks to be a devastating crop year, Helary said Northern Lights Foods is set up to withstand the loss.

“On the marketing side we have sufficient inventories to meet our customers’ demands. We don’t anticipate a problem on the marketing side. It’s certainly is a problem on the growing side of it. It puts that much more pressure to have a good crop next year.”

bbosker@panow.com