WEYBURN – Seeding is progressing slowly in the southeast region, with about 44 per cent of the crops in the ground for the area as a whole.
This is well behind the five-year average of 81 per cent of seeding done by this time of year, with delays from rain, snow and cool weather since the start of the planting season. Provincially seeding is about 52 per cent completed, well behind the five-year average of 78 per cent for this time of year.
In both the Weyburn crop district and Lake Alma-Radville crop district, the seeding is around 45 per cent done, and progress is furthest ahead in the Moosomin-Kipling area at 60 per cent.
In the Weyburn region, farmer Dale Mainil said they were able to make a big push and finished up their seeding on Friday about a half-hour before the rain arrived.
“We had three windows of opportunity through the month of May to plant our crops. We hammered her hard and were able to get it done,” he said, noting they had their eyes on the forecasts for rain through the month.
“I’ll take rain over dust blowing any time, but it is frustrating when you’re trying to get crops in the ground,” he added.
Mainil noted they first began around May 6 or 7, and their next window came in mid-May, and the third and final seeding period was in the past week.
“It was wetter, but it wasn’t too bad. We knew we had to go with the way this rain cycling through,” said Mainil. “Overall I was happy with how everything went in.”
He added that most of the producers in his area are about three to five days away from completing their seeding, and predicted most farmers will be done by the end of the first week of June, going by present conditions.
The crops they planted included lentils, canola, wheat, durum and canaryseed.
There was less precipitation across the region compared to previous weeks, but there still was rainfall to delay seeding, including around three-quarters of an inch in the Weyburn area over the weekend.
Excluding the weekend, the RM of Weyburn received about 9 mm, Brokenshell had 21 mm and Wellington RM had 2.5 mm, with rainfall ranging from 3 to 24 mm in the RM of Francis, and from 10.4 to 12 mm in the RM of Laurier.
Heat is now needed to accelerate the growth of both crop and pasture land as adequate moisture has been received so far.
Mainil noted while moisture levels have been replenished quite well to this point, most farms will still some timely rains through late June and July in order for the crops to develop and grow properly.
The topsoil moisture levels across the region continued to improve. Cropland topsoil moisture is rated as 34 per cent surplus, 60 per cent adequate, three per cent short and three per cent very short.
Hay and pasture land topsoil moisture is rated as seven per cent surplus, 81 per cent adequate, nine per cent short and three per cent very short.
Pasture conditions are rate as 20 per cent excellent, 51 per cent good, 24 per cent fair, four per cent poor and one per cent very poor.
Crop emergence was slow due to the cool rainy weather of the past few weeks, and development of most crops in the region are rated as behind normal. Most of the crop damage that occurred was due to frost and flooding.
