The damaged crops (Photo courtesy James Johnson)

By Justin Goulet

Johnson Fresh Farms feels the effects of Tuesday night storm

Aug 7, 2019 | 11:11 AM

TABER, AB – Johnson Fresh Farms lost about 90 percent of its crops Tuesday night.

Much like Molnar’s Taber Corn, Johnson was hit hard by the southern Alberta storm.

“About the same stuff that hit them hit us,” said James Johnson, the operator and owner of Johnson Fresh Farms.

“We’re right next to Molnar’s, so our corn is in about as good as shape as theirs. It was a very rough storm and decimated a lot of our crops.”

READ MORE: Crops wiped out at Molnar’s Taber Corn following Tuesday night storm

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Johnson told Lethbridge News Now that they’re still working to fully assess the damage done, adding a bit of corn on their river bottom went untouched.

“There’s not much of it left, but we’ll probably harvest that,” he said.

“We’ll still be out a few more times this year. We’re out today (Aug. 7) and we’ll probably be out tomorrow (Aug. 8) and then, we’ll kind of assess if our stuff on the river bottom is good to go, then we’ll go down there and we’ll probably be out for a few more days after that.”

READ MORE: Tuesday’s damaging winds equivalent to an EF1 tornado according to Environment Canada

He commented that their volume is extremely low following the storm damage.

“In the grand scheme of things, we lost about 90 percent of our crops,” he said.

Tuesday night’s storm caused damage to many farms in southern Alberta (Photos courtesy of Geni Witdouck on Twitter @Gwitdouck)

He noted that it’s particularly tough to take, because the corn season itself started later than planned.

“We were just kind of starting to get into some really nice corn. Our early stuff wasn’t the greatest this year, it kind of had a rough start to it. We had a very cold spring, some negative nine and 10 nights where we had corn that was exposed,” he said.

“That’s why our early stuff was very challenging this year and we were just kind of getting through that stuff and just about to get into our real nice main season stuff and in about 10 minutes, we watched it all get decimated,” _{– James Johnson, Owner and Operator of Johnson Fresh Farms}

Johnson said they’re selling Wednesday (Aug. 7) in Lethbridge, Medicine Hat, Taber and Brooks. He noted that shipments were also sent up to the Calgary and Edmonton areas earlier this week.

He said those selling locations will likely remain the same tomorrow, August 8.

“After that, we’ll have a better idea of what the crop’s going to do and if our stuff on the river bottom is ready, then we’ll go down there for a few days and after that, we’ll see…that might be the end of our season, we’re not sure yet,” he said.

Johnson remarked that depending on how the rebounding period goes, this could turn out to be a “short and depressing” corn season.