A couple weeks ago the Hanna Herald ran a classified ad: “Lost: 95 acres of topsoil. Last seen going north, south, east and west. Call …”
When Jean Curry recognized her neighbor’s number in the ad she was tempted to let him know she had seen the missing soil.
“I thought about phoning him and telling him I had seen it but it went by so fast I couldn’t get a measure on it,” she said.
The Sunnynook rancher, who lives 200 kilometres east of Calgary, is one of many farmers feeling the effects of this year’s drought across the central and northern Prairies.
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For those living in the arid Special Areas of southeastern Alberta, pasture management is everything. There has been no precipitation here for 11 months and the cattle are living on carryover grasses from last year. Tame grasses are stunted and native range is dormant.
Feed trucked in
Special Areas range specialist Cathie Erichsen-Arychuk said people are hauling in hay from western Alberta.
No one is hitting the panic button yet and each rancher must decide whether to sell or hold onto the herd a little longer.
“How bad do you want to keep the cows? Some of the herds are worth keeping,” she said.
So far, wells are in good shape but dugouts are getting low and there is some algae growth. Saline spots are showing up in very dry areas.
Delyn Jensen, beef specialist at Hanna, said some producers are selling cow/calf pairs and open cows. Others cancelled their grass yearling programs because they have no grass.
There are tinges of green in the southeast and some spotty showers passed over but there have been no general rains.
“One neighbor gets an inch and the other doesn’t get enough to pour out of his rain gauge,” said Jensen.
The situation is similar elsewhere.
John Popp, beef specialist at Medicine Hat, said a spattering of rain in the last week gave that area some reprieve but of greater concern was zero runoff this spring.
Dugouts are low and producers are worried they won’t have enough water to carry cattle over the summer.
Cool weather has slowed grass growth and hay crops are poor. Most of the grasses on dryland fields are heading out.
“If conditions persist as they are, the dryland hay is going to get cooked off,” said Popp.
He predicts grass-fed yearlings will flow into the auction yards a month earlier than normal but with yearling prices as sporadic as the rain showers, people tend to hold back.
Farther north, conditions are worse.
Wainwright-area beef specialist Harry Brook said his area has had a half inch of rain, one-tenth at a time.
“Some native range has been fried up,” he said. Precipitation is reported at 17 percent of normal this past winter.
“It’s depressing to talk to farmers around here. There is moisture in the air, but it is not reaching the ground,” said Brook.
Some have resorted to grazing their hay fields while others are still feeding from last year’s hay reserves. There is some early culling of cows but no wholesale movement of cattle yet, he said. Plants are exhibiting drought stress.
“When alfalfa starts to bloom at eight inches, you know it is under stress.”
