Rain A Welcome Site For Drought Affected Farmers

Several large weather systems moved through the prairies recently, causing a delay in harvest activity.

This week's storms even saw some tornado activity in Saskatchewan with reports coming in from north of Kindersley and around Hodgeville, which caused some significant damage destroying buildings, grain bins, equipment and more, while most other areas saw rain, strong winds, and hail.

Crops Extension Specialist Matt Struthers says even with the rainfall, crop and pasture land is under extreme stress from the drought.

"You know, it rained all the way down the south, southeast portions and part of the Southwest got rain. The West Central finally got rain and then you know in the north. The north got some rain too but the Grenfell area received the most at 97 mills. You know, that's a whack of water to get over just a couple of days. So hopefully there's a bit of runoff there, and cause some dugouts to fill up and get some water to some cattle. Certainly it'll raise the topsoil moisture."

Cropland topsoil moisture is now rated as one per cent surplus, 32 per cent adequate, 37 per cent short and 30 per cent very short. Hay and pasture land topsoil moisture is 23 per cent adequate, 34 per cent short and 42 per cent very short. While, provincially, pasture conditions are rated as one per cent good, 15 per cent fair, 46 per cent poor and 38 per cent very poor.

Struthers says at this point 29 per cent of Saskatchewan's harvest is in the bin, which is well ahead of the five year average of 12 per cent.

"Producers in the southwest region have 43 per cent combined, the southeast region 30 per cent, the west-central 27 per cent, the east-central 22 per cent, the northeast 25 per cent and the northwest 15 per cent. So that's very good to see, you know, all the regions arewell ahead of where they usually are and that's good, just to get the crop off early. And then, you know, kind of put this bad year behind us and hopefully it's going to rain a lot in the fall, and we can go into next year, really strong."

According to the weekly crop report 93 per cent of winter wheat, 78 per cent of fall rye, 76 per cent of lentils, 81 per cent of field peas, 42 per cent of barley, 31 per cent of durum, 23 per cent of oats, 25 per cent of spring wheat and six per cent of canola has been combined. An additional 30 per cent of canola has been swathed or is ready to straight-cut.