Manitoba Agriculture reports cool weather continues to slow the start of spring planting across much of the province. Manitoba Agriculture released its first weekly crop report of the season Tuesday.
Dennis Lange, a provincial pulse and soybean specialist with Manitoba Agriculture and Editor of the Provincial Crop Report says, while growers are slowly starting to get going, cooler weather earlier in the week has slowed things down and growers are hoping for warmer weather come the weekend.
Quote-Dennis Lange-Manitoba Agriculture:
We're just slowly starting to get going in Manitoba.Seeding wise, we're about two percent complete as of this week which means that it's very selective on which fields you can go into and seed.
In some cases, soil temperatures are very cold, some standing water in a few places but there are some fields that are going.At this point it's mostly some corn going in in the central and eastern regions. For spring wheat, we're seeing some spring wheat going in in the central and eastern regions as well and, when we look at the pulse side of things, we're starting to see some pea planting in the southwest and central regions.
It's hit and miss on the fields. Areas further north like the northwest, they're still dealing with some of the more recent snowstorms that they've had go through.I think, for the most part, that's what we'll continue to see. There's no oilseeds in, like canola or sunflowers as of yet.Soil temperatures are just too cool.
In different regions some growers have started or are waiting a few more days till this cold weather snap goes through and then try to get some drier soil conditions just to make a proper seedbed.
Lange says right now growers are looking for some warmer weather and, in some cases, we could use some rainfall to help bring out the frost a bit more and warm up the soils a little bit.
Source : Farmscape.ca