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Heavy Downpours Causing Crop Disease Headaches

It has been a blessing overall, but sometimes heavy recent rainfall is creating new headaches for some Saskatchewan pulse growers.
 
Over the past couple of weeks, the province’s crop report has alluded to increasing reports of disease in pulse crops, including root rot in peas and lentils – something crops extension specialist Cory Jacob this week attributed to the prevalence of sudden, heavy downpours that have allowed water to pond in the low-lying areas of fields.
 
Storms a few weeks ago dumped as much a 3-4 inches in some areas of the province, with some pockets now having seen up to 10 inches in the past 2-3 weeks alone, he said. With drought impacting many Saskatchewan production areas for months or even years, the moisture has obviously been welcomed, but it has come too fast, too hard in some cases.
 
“Too much moisture. . . I don’t think there we’re quite there yet,” Jacob said. “It’s more a symptom of a lot of rain at once and the moisture can’t run off quick enough.”
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