Saskatchewan Agriculture reports over the next week or so farmers across the province will be assessing crop losses caused by rain and hail. Saskatchewan Agriculture released its crop report Friday for the period from June 23rd to 29th.Kim Stonehouse, a Crop Extension Specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture says significant rain was received across many areas of the province along with some hail.
Quote-Kim Stonehouse-Saskatchewan Agriculture:
There's been significant rain in many areas of the province.As a matter of fact, just about every region has reported flooding of some amount.Along with that came some hail, of course.Producers are right now looking to assess those crops.They'll be assessing them over the next week to determine their impact on yields.
The heavy rainfall has resulted in saturated fields with flooding in low-lying areas and the cool wet weather has also slowed the crop development.It's making it difficult for farmers to complete their spraying or even starting haying operations.The cool and wet weather that we've had over the last number of weeks has caused crops to stay mainly near the normal stages of development.
There are not many that are ahead of normal stages of development this time of year.I expect because of this rain that the disease will increase in the coming weeks.It will have one factor that it needs to develop.Right now, crop damage mostly is related to the flooding caused by the rain but also there's gophers and wind that have caused damage and flea beetle activity is still causing some minor damage in some areas.
Stonehouse says it's probably going to take a week or two to assess how many acres have been lost but the actual impact of the rain won't be known completely until harvest.He says over the next week farmers will be attempting to complete in-crop herbicide applications and then their focus will shift to scouting crops to address any concerns around insects or diseases.
Source : Farmscape.ca