Rain welcomed but more needed

Many areas of the province got the rain they were asking for last week.

But will it be enough to save the highly stressed crops, hay and pasture land?

Rancher Adrienne Ivy said it’s a good start.

“Don’t get me wrong. When it started to rain at our place last weekend you would not have found happier people in North America. We were so happy to see the rain come,” Ivy said. “But that being said we still have a lot of challenges to work around. The late frost this spring really affected a lot of our forage species, alfalfa in particular. That’s such an important thing for us when it comes to feed production.”

Ivy said it’s still going to be challenging figuring out how to grass the animals all summer and how to keep them fed all winter.

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“That’s something in the back of our minds. We’re trying to come up with Plan B, create some different rations, work with different things that might be out there now that there is rain, like annual crops,” Ivey said.

“This rain will mean we’ll be able to hold on to our breeding stock which is amazing. But we did have to sell all of our yearling grassers we had that we intended to graze for the summer, just to make sure we had the grazing land available for the breeding herd.”

Ivey said more rain will be needed.

“Sometimes when it comes to rain it’s not really about how much we get but how timely it is,” Ivy said. “This rain was fantastic. It was a beautiful, slow, really soaking in rain. But we will need more. It’s still only June. We will need more rain within the month.”

Adrienne Ivy and her husband Aaron farm in the Ituna area.

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alice.mcfarlane@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @AliceMcF