Saskatchewan seeding weather One farm received 178 mm of rain since the end of March. Yorkton region is among hardest hit
It is a soggy deja vu for growers trying to seed a crop in eastern Saskatchewan.
“We are saturated,” said Arlynn Kurtz, a producer from Stockholm, Sask. “Creeks are running fuller now than they were after spring melt.”
His farm has received 178 milli-metres of rain since the end of March, which fell on already waterlogged soil.
“We’re wetter than a year ago,” said Kurtz.
Conditions are similar for farms north to Yorkton and worse heading south to Estevan, where some farms have received even more unwanted moisture.
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It doesn’t help that a lot of the land in the area was cultivated last fall because farmers were unable to seed and that the roads leading to many fields were already in a state of disrepair.
Saskatchewan Agriculture reports that six percent of southeastern Saskatchewan will go unseeded, but that estimate was made before the rain that fell on the May 5-6 weekend on an area that stretches west to Moose Jaw.
Kurtz believes closer to 40 percent of the land south of Yorkton to the U.S. border will once again be idled, even if conditions improve.
“We’re going to see a big portion of this province very late seeded and unseeded. It’s shaping up to be a bad situation again,” he said.
Conditions are reminiscent of last spring, when 44 percent of agricultural land went unseeded in the southeast.
The vast majority of the eight million unseeded and flooded acres in the province that year were located in the southeast.
Kurtz believes another year of excessive moisture will have market implications for farmers in Western Canada.
Eastern Saskatchewan is a significant canola growing region. There are two crushers in Yorkton and one in nearby Harrowby, Man.
The region that Saskatchewan Agriculture classifies as the southeast grew 11 percent of last year’s canola crop and 22 percent the previous year. Those numbers would jump substantially if crop district 5A, which includes Yorkton, was added to the mix.
The later that seeding is delayed, the less wheat and canola will be planted in favour of barley and oats.
Growers used airplanes and Valmar applicators to plant canola on soggy fields last year, but Kurtz doesn’t expect that to happen again based on conversations he has had with growers who tried it.
“Canola really needs phosphate fertilizer with the seed. When you’re broadcasting you don’t get that and you don’t get the yield results out of it you wanted,” he said.
He believes canola planting could be down 10 to 50 percent in southeastern Saskatchewan.
It has been a much better spring for growers in other regions of Saskatchewan and in neighbouring provinces.
Pam deRocquigny, cereal crops specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, said seeding is 75 percent complete in some regions of the province.
“We’re definitely making good headway here in Manitoba.”
She hasn’t heard any talk of unseeded acres this year after three million acres sat idle in 2011, a large portion of which was located in southwestern Manitoba.
Precipitation on the May 5-6 weekend slowed field operations in the southwest but seeding was already 20 to 25 percent complete in that region.
“We’re on par with what we’d like to see for this time of year,” said deRocquigny.
Harry Brook, crop specialist with Alberta Agriculture, thinks it is too soon to be erasing acres from supply and demand reports.
“It’s a little early to be saying death, disaster and mayhem, isn’t it?” said Brook. “I kind of fail to see the urgency at the moment.”
The rain has been a godsend for many producers in Alberta, where the taps had been turned off since the end of July.
“We had a moisture deficit this spring. The moisture we’ve had hasn’t really addressed the moisture deficit,” said Brook.
Places like Coronation and Consort in east-central Alberta were in dire need of moisture.
“They were drier than a popcorn fart,” said Brook.
The only downside of last week’s widespread rain showers was that they brought a halt to field work.
“What was looking to be an early start to the seeding season is probably going to devolve into a regular time,” he said.
Back near Stockholm, Kurtz is facing the third straight year of excessive moisture. Last year he was able to seed only 14 percent of his 4,500 acres. Many neighbours never turned a wheel.
Even if the weather improved, it would be 10 days to two weeks before he could be out in his fields, which would put him two to three weeks behind normal.
“There is water lying all over the place. Every low spot is full of water. There is water running in the fields from one low spot to another.”
