Dryness puts Alta. crops behind the eight ball

Dryness puts Alta. crops behind the eight ball

Much of southern Alberta is in trouble, but the situation is better in Saskatchewan and Manitoba remains a mixed bag

Derek Squair, president of Exceed Grain Marketing, recently completed an extensive crop tour of the province. Squair said it is too early to be making any average yield forecasts because conditions can change in a hurry. He will have a much better idea where things are heading by mid-July.

Shriveled and stunted canola plants.

Dryness puts Alta. crops behind the eight ball

Derek Squair, president of Exceed Grain Marketing, recently completed an extensive crop tour of the province. Squair said it is too early to be making any average yield forecasts because conditions can change in a hurry. He will have a much better idea where things are heading by mid-July.

Warm and dry weather is expected to persist in the northern U.S. Plains spring wheat belt and the Canadian Prairies through next week, potentially stressing developing wheat, and other crops, agricultural meteorologists said. | File photo

Warm dry week may stress spring wheat

CHICAGO, June 2 (Reuters) – Warm and dry weather is expected to persist in the northern U.S. Plains spring wheat belt and the Canadian Prairies through next week, potentially stressing developing wheat, and other crops, agricultural meteorologists said. “It’s dry for the next 10 days, for the most part,” David Streit, a meteorologist with the […] Read more


Rain at the right time in many areas has produced fields of green: barley, field peas, lentils, fababeans, flax and forages are doing well, although disease threatens peas and lentils. | File photo

Prairie crops in great shape

The potential exists for a western Canadian bumper crop barring significant, widespread weather problems in the second half of the growing season. Satellite images show that crop vegetative health is either higher or much higher than normal across the prairie region. “The bulk of Western Canada is looking very good at this point,” said Gordon […] Read more

Mazen Aljarrah, wheat and triticale breeder at the Field Crop Development Centre in Lacombe, Alta., stands in a field of Pintail winter wheat he bred. It took 10 years to breed the winter hardy winter wheat. | Mary MacArthur photo

Hardy winter wheat variety could boost prairie acres

FERINTOSH, Alta. — A hardy new variety of winter wheat could encourage growers to increase acres planted to the crop. Pintail is the hardiest winter wheat grown in Canada and this is the second year that Silver Creek Colony has grown it. There has been no need to reseed even with poor snow cover and […] Read more


The area in the eastern Prairies suffering from excess moisture and delayed crop growth this year is much larger than it was in 2011, the last year of significant flooding. In 2011, Manitoba’s canola yield was 16 percent below the five-year average and wheat was 13 percent below the average. The maps are based on satellite measurements of vegetation greenness and how they vary from a long-term average index. The map for this year shows normal to higher than normal conditions in Alberta and western Saskatchewan, but not as good as in 2011.

Satellite images paint gloomy picture

Crops across southern Manitoba are usually fully emerged by July 15, and it’s almost impossible to see soil from the highway because the vegetation is so dense. That’s not the case this year. Many oilseed and cereal crops are patchy because of near record amounts of rain in the western half of the province. For […] Read more