Spring brings renewed optimism for prairie farmers who hope last year’s drought and pest problems are over.
Ian Bell, Western Producer’s Brandon reporter, criss-crossed the region in late March and talked to producers. This week he writes about his conversations with Alberta producers. Saskatchewan and Manitoba will follow in subsequent issues.
With mild spring breezes melting away winter’s grip, Harry Welsch is already dreaming about the pasturing season and the time he will spend on horseback checking cattle.
He and his wife, Marilyn, are hopeful about the months ahead. There’s water in their dugouts and good subsoil moisture in the fields and pastures that make up their ranch.
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“We’re looking forward to this year,” said Harry, while nursing a cup of coffee. “I think it’s going to be a really good year.”
Marilyn shares that optimism, noting that spring is “always full of great promise.”
Their ranch house overlooks a rolling landscape of fields and pastures, backdropped by the Rocky Mountains. As of March 20, most of the snow had melted, except for the occasional drift clinging to a hill or edging a waterway.
In March last year drought still gripped their area and much of southern Alberta. But rain returned in the growing season and if moisture continues this year in southern Alberta, the Welsches believe their pastures will be green and lush and they could be harvesting some bountiful crops.
“We have really good years and really bad years,” Harry said. “We plan for the bad years.”
Near Edmonton, Gord Pope was remembering what it was like to go through one of the bad years. He grows grain and raises cattle near Ryley, one of the areas hit hard by drought last year.
The situation looked so desperate last spring Pope tried to get permission from the province to seed crop in a local lake that had dried up. He was turned down.
His crops were written off early under crop insurance. Concerned about the threat of a feed shortage, he sold all his replacement heifers.
But rains later in the growing season revived some crops that could at least be grazed or cut as livestock feed. He managed to put aside enough feed to get the core of his herd through the winter.
He hopes this spring there will be enough moisture from winter snow for crop germination and to fill the dugouts.
“We’ll definitely have enough for germination, but we’re going to need rain. We have no subsoil (moisture) left,” he said, when visited March 19.
He’s trying to conserve the remaining cattle feed, concerned that pasture might again be limited by dry weather.
He bought an air drill so that he can direct seed, which will help conserve soil moisture. He also bought a solar-powered watering system to conserve his dugouts.
“It’s definitely better than it was last year,” he said of the moisture conditions heading into spring, “but we’re not out of the woods.”
Those sentiments are supported by a climate outlook released by Agriculture Canada in mid-March. It said northeastern Alberta and northwestern Saskatchewan have a high risk of continued drought.
Ted O’Brien of the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration said the high risk area also includes High Level in the northern Peace River region. On-farm water shortages were expected to continue there this spring. Feed and forage could also be scarce, at least early in the growing season.
Southern Alberta has a moderate risk of drought this spring, said O’Brien, “more because of lack of snow than the lack of
soil moisture.”
Summer weather is uncertain, but based on the current phase of the El Nino weather phenomenon and the unlikely chance that drought could strike three years in a row, O’Brien suggested there’s a good probability the dryness will subside this year.
Drought, grasshoppers, crop disease, frosts and harvest rain conspired to cut Alberta’s spring wheat and canola production by 50 percent last year.
Statistics Canada noted that for some farmers, it was worse than the 1930s.
At Stettler, Alta., growing conditions were “downright ignorant,” said Larry Nemetz, who farms with his son Charlie. They grow grain and pedigreed seed and also have a commercial cattle herd.
Area crops averaged 20 percent of normal yields because of drought. A lot of crop was silaged or baled as livestock feed.
“Just about all the canola in the area ended up in the silage pit,” Larry said.
He and Charlie combined their crops for the sake of getting seed for their pedigreed seed business.
Local reserves of hay, straw and feed grains are depleted, said Charlie. American corn has been flowing into the area.
But there was rain in late summer and
fall last year and snow this winter has given Nemetz family hope there will enough moisture to get a crop started this spring. The Nemetzes both described their
outlook as optimistic when interviewed March 19.
“We’ll probably be off to a good start,” Larry said. “We’ll need timely rains after that. There’s no subsoil moisture.”
They drilled another water well for their livestock. They have direct seeded more of their land in recent years and they’re always on the lookout for more drought tolerant crop varieties.
Near Fort Macleod, Alta., Allen Zoeteman continuous crops with a combination of hay and cereals. Part of his land is under irrigation.
Soil moisture in his area looked good in mid-March. What concerned him was the higher fertilizer and fuel costs this year and how that will bite into any profits farmers might make.
He also was wondering what direction grain prices might go.
He plans to plant what he calls the “old standbys,” namely barley, wheat and durum. He’s going into the planting season with a come-what-may attitude.
“There’s no sense being worried about anything. Might as well get at it.”
