The skies over the Peace look promising. Clouds roll in, the temperature drops and farmers look to the sky for much needed rain.
But wishing hasn’t made it rain yet. The last general rain in the northwestern part of Alberta fell on the May long weekend.
What started off as a promising spring that would bring a bountiful crop and plentiful hay has disappeared with the wind.
“It eventually will rain, but who knows when,” said Bill Melnyk of Bonanza.
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“It’s drying up pretty fast. The growth has pretty much stopped.”
Melnyk is one of the lucky farmers.
He has more pasture than he needs for his cattle and hasn’t been forced to regraze already skinny pastures or graze the grass harder than he should.
“Just how good grass is once it dries up is debatable,” said Melnyk, who said the yearlings may get sent to market sooner than he would like if they quit gaining weight.
Norm Boulet, an agriculture field-man with the Municipal District of Smoky River, said rain in his area has been “extremely spotty” or “meager showers.”
He said it may rain one or two-tenths at a time, not enough to stop the wheat from beginning to shrivel and burn.
“A third of the heads are browned off and blank. Every day, the patches are getting bigger. The plant realizes it’s limited for moisture and is giving up on some of the seed.”
Boulet said the canola seems to be hanging on, but the real test of the drought damage won’t be known until harvest.
“It’s hard to say with canola. It may rebound if we get more rain.”
Hay crops have shrunk to a half bale per acre.
Boulet said it’s hard to watch weather reports across the Prairies with farmers getting continuous rains.
“We’re feeling somewhat left out. An inch would be a miracle.”
Boulet estimates farmers will begin harvesting peas by mid August or earlier and wheat shortly after that.
Susan Meyer of Clairmont, Alta., operates a saskatoon U-pick and said if it weren’t for irrigation, there would be no crop.
“She’s bloody dry,” said Meyer.
A combination of a cool spring and wind has limited the amount of fruit.
“The word we’re getting is there’s no saskatoons in the wild. We have fruit and it looks lovely, but there’s not much there.”
