A Weather and Crop Specialist with G3 Canada is predicting prairie farmers will increase the number of pulse and oilseed acres they plant this spring and decrease cereal acres.
Although western Canada has seen a relatively early start to spring weather, the past week has seen a return to more normal temperatures.
Bruce Burnett, a Weather and Crop Specialist with G3 Canada Limited, says most areas of the prairies have a small amount of snow cover if any and, with more normal temperatures expected over the next 2 to 3 weeks, seeding is expected to get underway by the middle of April in the more southern growing regions, especially southern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan.
Bruce Burnett-G3 Canada Limited:
Certainly it looks as if the planted area, given that we're having an early start, should be similar to the last number of years.
There's a few areas that are suffering from too much moisture, especially in Manitoba, eastern Saskatchewan but most of that area should be planted unless we receive some heavy rainfall in the spring period.
So it looks as if we'll plant similar areas to last year.
Source : Farmscape