Seeding is one to two weeks behind normal in many parts of the Prairies and flooding continues.
The situation has farmers wondering what it will do to yields.
The answer may come from a four-year study of staggered seeding dates conducted by Alberta Agriculture in the southern portion of that province.
The study revealed a dramatic daily drop in yields for crops seeded after May 1 in Lethbridge and Bow Island.
“You could really start to see things decline,” said Ross McKenzie, an agronomy research scientist with Alberta Agriculture in Lethbridge.
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The average yield reduction was about one percent for every day that seeding was delayed past May 1. Canola was the hardest hit crop with a 1.7 percent daily decline in yield, while flax fared the best with a 0.6 percent daily loss.
Researchers planted wheat, durum, barley, triticale, flax and canola at four different seeding dates.
The first planting was done around April 15 and then every 10 to 14 days after that with the last crops going in around the end of May.
All of the crops were grown under irrigation, so lack of water was not a factor.
McKenzie said there are several reasons why the early-seeded plants fared better, the biggest being that they simply had more exposure to sunlight. They also got a jump on weed, insect and disease pressure.
Earlier-seeded crops are also exposed to less heat stress during the critical tillering and pod formation stages of development.
He feels the results could be extrapolated to other parts of the Prairies, although the critical seeding date will differ and the daily yield decline may be more pronounced on non-irrigated land where summer dy periods could take a bigger toll on less developed plants.
Even though canola suffered the biggest daily decline, farmers might want to seed high-value cereal crops before canola because they are more resilient to spring frost.
McKenzie said it is highly unlikely farmers in the Lethbridge area will seed a crop this year before the critical May 1 deadline. Snow was still on the ground at the beginning of this week.
“I don’t anticipate us seeding at the very earliest until the last few days of April, if we’re lucky,” he said.
