Saskatchewan Agriculture reports, although abundant snowmelt this spring has helped with crop emergence, most regions of the province are in need of rain to further crop development. Saskatchewan Agriculture released its weekly crop report Thursday for the period from May 27 to June 2.Tyce Masich, a Crops Extension Specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture, says the topsoil has been drying out the past couple of weeks, especially from last week to this week.
Quote-Tyce Masich-Saskatchewan Agriculture:
It's been another dry week here in most of the province.There's been minimal rainfall all over with the exception of a couple of areas in the northwest that got around 10 millimetres but other than that it's been dry throughout the province.That's allowed farmers that still had seeding left to do to finish up this past week so pretty much all of the seed is in the ground now for the spring except for a few acres here and there in the southeast.
Farmers are still planting the last few acres of soybeans and canola crops for example and we've also had some warmer and windier weather as well which has definitely dried out topsoil moisture conditions as well.Like we've said before this spring, farmers are lucky that they had lots of snowmelt to help get the crop emerged and started but we need a good rain in most of the province to help further development of crops.The crops in the east central and southeast probably look a bit better relative to the rest of the province just because they've had a bit more moisture but, like I mentioned, the good snowmelt that we had this spring has allowed those crops to emerge pretty well.
Crop emergence is actually anywhere between average to good for this year in Saskatchewan which is a good sign.I know there is some areas that have been dry all spring that crop emergence is struggling, but kind of it depends on where you are in the province and your region specifically.
Masich says some areas of the province do have rain in the forecast so hopefully that will come.He says farmers that still have acres that need to be planted will be doing that during the upcoming week but most farmers are moving into in crop herbicide application.
Source : Farmscape.ca