Peas are the first crop that Richard Arnold plants, usually in the final days of April. This wet spring, it’s highly unlikely that will happen on his Hamiota, Man., farm.
“There’s certainly more water lying about and running in places it hasn’t run since 2001,” said Arnold, who grows peas, wheat, oats and canola on his 3,000 acres.
While flooding in Manitoba’s Red River Valley has garnered most of the headlines, producers in the western half of the province are also coping with above normal moisture this spring.
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“It’s certainly going to be later than normal,” said Arnold. “We’re probably a week behind, I’m estimating at the moment.”
A large area of western Manitoba, stretching from Neepawa to the Saskatchewan border and up to Winnipegosis, received double the average precipitation in February and March, according to Agriculture Canada data.
Heavy rain has complicated matters. There was a rare rainfall in early February, followed by a downpour the third week of March, when 75 millimetres of precipitation fell in western Manitoba.
A subsequent cold snap froze culverts and exacerbated overland flooding in the region.
“We’re actually going to apply for disaster assistance,” said Keith Syslak, reeve for the Rural Municipality of Minto near Minnedosa. “We have about 10 spots where we have roads closed right now. The culverts are washed out.”
Asked if producers will be able to get to their farmland this spring, Syslak said it will take time, but temporary fixes of the roads should solve the problem.
“It’s hard to fix a culvert when the water’s still running,” he said. “Everybody should be able to get to where they want to go within a month.”
The situation is similar in his area, said Arnold, a councillor in the RM of Hamiota, where the powerful spring runoff has washed away roads and culverts.
In spite of the wetter than usual spring and the related transportation headaches, Arnold is not panicking.
“At the moment, we’re going to stick with what we normally do,” he said.
He typically seeds 500 to 600 acres of oats, but low prices have convinced him to reduce that figure and shift to wheat.
In the Shoal Lake area, Elmer Kaskiw is also feeling upbeat about spring seeding.
“It seems like a lot of this snowmelt has gone down into our subsoil to help replenish some moisture,” said the farm production adviser with Manitoba Agriculture in Shoal Lake.
Producers in the area were seeding by the last week of April in 2008 and will likely get on the land by the first week of May this year.
Kaskiw credits minimal tillage practices for holding water on the land and reducing runoff in his region.
“We’ve got more producers that are leaving residue, standing stubble. That certainly helps a lot. When you get those gradual melts, the water tends to follow those root systems down into the subsoil.”
