Burnett says moisture in most areas have improved, but timely rains are needed

Seeding operations continue to progress with warmer temperatures expected to help dry things up on the eastern side of the prairies - southeast Saskatchewan and into Manitoba.

Bruce Burnett, the Director of Markets and Weather for MarketsFarm says seeding operations began in Alberta.

"Obviously, there is some dryness ( those fires up in central and northern Alberta ), but the soils themselves, in most cases, farmers have adequate soil moisture in those regions.  Alberta is pressing ahead right now, and especially given the forecast for dry weather and mostly warmer than normal conditions for Alberta in the upcoming couple of weeks. We will have caught up and probably be ahead of normal in terms of planting progress there. In Saskatchewan, it's a bit more of a mixed bag. We've had some late season snow storms that hit Manitoba and Eastern Saskatchewan and that has delayed start in those areas. In fact, last week, we saw some rains also move up right on the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border that's going to keep guys out of the field even more.  Western Saskatchewan progress that's been decent. On the eastern areas again, eastern Saskatchewan-Manitoba a later start to planting, it'll probably take about 10 days here before we get good seeding progress going on. "