Alberta soil moisture improving but still low

Jun 26, 2025
By Farms.com

Alberta farmers face drought despite recent rains

According to the AFSC and Alberta Government Crop Reporting Survey for the week of June 17 to 25, the recent rainfall has brought some relief to Alberta's agriculture sector, especially in the Central and North East regions.

However, the South continues to face drought stress. Crop conditions across the province are rated at 50 per cent good to excellent—below the 5- and 10-year averages of 71 and 70 per cent.

Major crops like canola and dry peas are showing signs of progress. Canola in the south is mostly in the rosette stage, with some already flowering. Dry peas have reached mid-development stages. Despite these gains, overall ratings remain below historical levels.

Spraying operations are ahead of the 5- and 10-year averages, with 66 per cent completed. Pest activity is low across the province, except for flea beetles in the South where 7 per cent of fields are above threshold levels.

Pasture and hay growth remain a concern. Pasture conditions improved slightly to 41 per cent good to excellent, but tame hay ratings slipped to 38 per cent. The Northwest region leads in pasture growth, while the Peace and South regions report the most stress. Early hay cutting has already begun in the driest areas.

Soil moisture conditions improved with recent rainfall. Surface moisture rated good to excellent rose to 37 per cent, while sub-surface levels reached 38 per cent. The Peace Region received the most rainfall, with 30–50 mm recorded.

While some improvement is noted, continued precipitation will be essential for crops and pastures to recover fully in the coming weeks.

Photo Credit: gettyimages-ianchrisgraham

Video: Wheat Yields in USA and China Threatened by Heat Waves Breaking Enzymes

A new peer reviewed study looks at the generally unrecognized risk of heat waves surpassing the threshold for enzyme damage in wheat.

Most studies that look at crop failure in the main food growing regions (breadbaskets of the planet) look at temperatures and droughts in the historical records to assess present day risk. Since the climate system has changed, these historical based risk analysis studies underestimate the present-day risks.

What this new research study does is generate an ensemble of plausible scenarios for the present climate in terms of temperatures and precipitation, and looks at how many of these plausible scenarios exceed the enzyme-breaking temperature of 32.8 C for wheat, and exceed the high stress yield reducing temperature of 27.8 C for wheat. Also, the study considers the possibility of a compounded failure with heat waves in both regions simultaneously, this greatly reducing global wheat supply and causing severe shortages.

Results show that the likelihood (risk) of wheat crop failure with a one-in-hundred likelihood in 1981 has in today’s climate become increased by 16x in the USA winter wheat crop (to one-in-six) and by 6x in northeast China (to one-in-sixteen).

The risks determined in this new paper are much greater than that obtained in previous work that determines risk by analyzing historical climate patterns.

Clearly, since the climate system is rapidly changing, we cannot assume stationarity and calculate risk probabilities like we did traditionally before.

We are essentially on a new planet, with a new climate regime, and have to understand that everything is different now.