While many crop harvests are still ongoing, likely delayed by some of the late august rain we've been getting, hay crops have more or less finished with harvest.

For many farmers, what they got was very far from ideal, after months of drought and a lack of soil moisture stymied growth.

Shane Schiestel, a local farmer, says that he and many other local farmers had to deal with a very bad year.

"This is definitely the worst year we've had for a long time. We managed to get enough hay cut from sloughs and stuff like that but this is definitely the worst year in a long time."

"Talking to neighbours and stuff it's been pretty much all the same. you're only bound about a quarter or half a bale an acre in a lot of fields," said Schiestel, "There was the odd field where we got a bale an acre but not overly good overall that's for sure."

The cause of the bad harvest can be traced back to the previous year's rain, where little precipitation in the fall caused soil moisture levels to be lower than average.

Combined with a dryer start to the growing season this spring, hayfields got off to a bad start.

"No rain or anything last fall, and we went into this year with no subsoil moisture at all," said Schiestel, "Then the rains we did get, they were almost a little too late to get the hay crops going where they were a bit stunted off the start. We're thankful for the rain we did get, it's been good for the pastures, and we did get a little bit of hay."

"We'd definitely take any rain we can get, get some sub-soil moisture back and green up the pastures. The last couple of rains we've had definitely didn't amount to much but they definitely greened up the pastures a little bit so it helped them out a little."

Schiestel says any farmer looking to make up from the season might have to look for some unconventional areas.

"Try going and finding anything you can cut, whether it's loose or if you can get bales of straw from neighbours. We went and baled pea straw and sloughs and kind of mixed them with our good hay to make it through the winter."