A spring storm that hit western Manitoba April 30 and May 1 will likely delay seeding by two weeks or more in the parkland region, says the provincial government.
The storm, which dumped 10 to 50 centimetres of snow and up to 50 millimetres of rain on parts of the province, isn’t a calamity because producers should be able to seed a crop.
However, Manitoba farmers in the area around Ste. Rose du Lac were not in a cheery mood, said Rob Brunel, who grows soybeans, canola, oats, barley and wheat near the community.
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“I don’t want to call it the end of the world, but it’s pretty gloomy around here these days.”
The blizzard delivered snow and rain to most of southern Manitoba, although the proportion of snow to rain in the province varied, depending on location.
It prompted fears that already high water levels in the Assiniboine, Souris and Red rivers would rise even higher, but flood forecasters with Manitoba Water Stewardship announced May 1 that the precipitation would prolong high flows in the province’s major rivers but wouldn’t cause water levels to exceed crests achieved in late April.
Jim Heshka, a crop production adviser with Manitoba Agriculture, said farmers in the region wouldn’t likely be in their fields until later in May.
“It’s going to take two weeks,” he said. “The soils that were in trouble because of excess moisture last year … there’s going to be late seeding again, no doubt about it.”
The snowstorm was unwelcome because farmland in the area north of Riding Mountain National Park was drying up and seeding might have commenced in early May, Heshka said.
Brunel was planning to start seeding around May 7 but the snow will push that back to at least the middle of the month.
“I would take a guess that we (have) at least a foot (of snow). I got stuck in my yard with my truck…. If you walk into the bush there’s probably two feet of snow,” said Brunel.
“It looks like the middle of winter…. The south side of (houses) had four feet of snow piled up against them.”
