A Manitoba farmer is surprised and grateful after neighbours and friends pitched in to harvest his crops while he battled cancer.

Ron Edwards, 47, planted more than 300 hectares of wheat, oats and canola on his farm near Otterburne, south of Winnipeg, this spring.

He went to a doctor complaining about a sore back in June, and after 42 years without a hospital visit, he learned he had bone cancer.

Edwards was released from hospital in August after more than a month spent recovering from chemotherapy, open lung surgery and pneumonia.

However, he was in no position to harvest the crops he'd planted in the spring.

"I barely got through seeding, then … I went to see what the problem was, and basically after seeding I couldn't do anything at all. I hired people to do my spraying, and then from then on I was more or less very ill and in the hospital," he told CBC's Radio Noon on Wednesday. 

Fortunately, more than 20 people — some he barely knew — pitched in to help get the crop off, saving him thousands of dollars in hired help. 

"A combine is worth a lot of money. Some of them run $100, $150 an hour. I know some guys worked a day, two days, three days even, and they didn't charge anything at all for their machines," he said.

At one point, he said, he looked out his window and saw six combines working in his fields.

"That was something to see. It was hard not to get emotional when you think of all the people that came out to help," said Edwards, who took out two advertisements in local papers to thank everyone who helped.

"Words can't express how I feel about everybody that helped. It's so amazing. I don't know what to say."

Edwards needs a bone-marrow transplant; his three sisters were tested but were not medical matches.

Doctors are now looking into whether they can use some of Edwards' own bone marrow to help in his recovery.