By Nigel Maxwell

Crops coming up well, but farmers need rain

Jun 21, 2018 | 2:00 PM

The 2018 crop is developing quite nicely in Saskatchewan, according to this week’s crop report from the Ministry of Agriculture.

Across the province, seventy-five per cent of the pulse crops and fall and spring cereals are at their normal stages of development, while 70 per cent of the oilseeds are at their normal stages for this time of year. Prince Albert Agrologist George Lewko said his big concern is moisture.

“It’s sort of hit and miss across the province,” he said. “Some places are very wet and other places are getting pretty dry and we are getting into that pretty dry area.”

The Prince Albert and Melfort areas received about 15 mm of rain last week. Other areas to the west received much more, including Rosthern which saw 54mm and Biggar which had 35 mm. On the opposite end of the spectrum, many areas in the southwestern and west-central regions remain very dry, including Gull Lake, Shaunavon, Outlook, and Dinsmore, which have received less than 25 mm of rain since April 1.

Lewko said one thing he has noticed as he has been driving across the countryside is some of the low-lying seeded areas, which have been wet for a number of years, now look very saline.

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“The crops are not doing well close to those sloughs, or the sloughs have disappeared, and that’s going to take a few years to move those salts back down into the soil away from the germinating seed where it seems to be hurting it,” he said.

The Ministry of Agriculture’s report said crop conditions are much better in the Melfort and Tisdale areas. Lori Kidney farms about five miles east of Tisdale area and said her canola and cereal crops are in very good shape.

“We’re probably two weeks ahead of last year,” she said.

Kidney said they had a dry start but have received a good amount of rain the past couple weeks.

“We are sitting pretty close to perfect, but if the temperatures stay this hot we will be looking for a rain by the end of next week,” she said

Provincially, topsoil moisture conditions on cropland were rated as four per cent surplus, 67 per cent adequate, 24 per cent short, and five per cent very short.  Hay land and pasture topsoil moisture was rated as 61 per cent adequate, 28 per cent short, and 11 per cent very short. 

nigel.maxwell@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @nigelmaxwell