What we know about how wildfire smoke affects Prairie crops

Impacts depend on smoke quantity, plant progress, surrounding weather conditions

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Published: June 3, 2025

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Wildfire smoke outside Calgary, August 2023. Photo: Sneha Annie Sebastian/iStock/Getty Images

Glacier FarmMedia — With nearly 100 active wildfires across the three Prairie provinces at this writing, farmers don’t have to go far to see and feel the effects of smoke in the atmosphere — but what this year’s crops will experience is a more complicated matter.

If you’ve got time for some reading right now, here we’ve gathered a list of links to recent years’ articles on the subject from across our sister publications.

Impact of smoke on crops is more than a little hazy, Alberta Farmer, 2019

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Photo: Primeimages/Getty Images Plus

Fifty-six per cent chance of more stable, ENSO neutral weather conditions in late summer and fall U.S. forecasters say

More stable weather due to El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) neutral conditions are likely in the Northern Hemisphere summer of 2025, with a 56 per cent chance in August-October, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center said.

As smoke over Prairie skies became an annual phenomenon, many farmers were wondering about the cumulative effect on their seeded crops. The answer to that question, though, “is so plant- and environment-specific” and not much research has been done to further clarify, agronomist Jeremy Boychyn told Alexis Kienlen.

How is corn impacted by wildfire smoke?, Manitoba Co-operator, 2024

How does a smoke-obscured sun and poor air quality affect corn crops? To be sure, it reduces sunlight (bad) — but it also helps to diffuse sunlight (good).

“The way it breaks out is that wildfire smoke can negatively impact the crop, but it can actually positively affect the crop,” Purdue professor Dan Quinn told our associate editor Don Norman last spring.

The potential impacts to field crops from wildfire smoke, Farmtario, 2023

Ontario’s ag ministry put together these lists of the pros and cons of wildfire smoke on crops during wildfires in Ontario and Quebec in 2023.

Wildfire smoke’s crop yield impact thought to be minimal, Western Producer, 2024

Whether wildfire smoke has an impact on crop yield is one thing, but as smoke’s effects on grape crops in California and Australia have shown, its effect on crop quality may be quite another.

Smoke and weather a complex topic, Manitoba Co-operator, 2024

Weather expert Daniel Bezte examined what we know about wildfire smoke’s effects on weather, including temperatures, precipitation and atmospheric stability.

Click here for information from the Canadian Red Cross on how to support evacuees from wildfire-threatened communities in Manitoba and Saskatchewan.

About the author

Dave Bedard

Dave Bedard

Editor, Grainews

Farm-raised in northeastern Saskatchewan. B.A. Journalism 1991. Local newspaper reporter in Saskatchewan turned editor and farm writer in Winnipeg. (Life story edited by author for time and space.)

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