Saskatchewan looking for rain after another dry week in latest crop report

Saskatchewan is seeing harvest continue with many cereal crops ready to go around the province.

Tyce Masich, a Crops Extension Specialist with Saskatchewan's Ministry of Agriculture, talks about the current pace of the harvest.

"Currently the harvest is 6 per cent done all throughout the province, but mainly harvest is taking place in the southwest and southeast parts of the province, the southwest leads the province with harvest progress at 16 percent and the southeast is behind it at 11 per cent."

Fall-seeded crops are seeing the most progress, mainly cereals.

"Mainly the crops being harvested or with the most progress harvest progress right now are the fall seed crops. So that includes fall rye and winter wheat and farmers are starting to harvest their pulse crops like peas and lentils right now."

Rainfall has been touch and go for Saskatchewan with only some areas seeing decent rainfall.

"It's been spotty, depending on where you are. Most of the rainfall seen in the province this past week took place in the east central and northeast regions of the province, primarily around the Covington and Wadena areas. They received anywhere between 25 and 55mm, depending on where you were, whereas the rest of the province was fairly dry."

That's kept moisture conditions falling in most of the province with the dry spell continuing.

"That's kept topsoil moisture in most of the province outside of the East Central NE continuing to decline just with the dry and hot temperatures we've had. So farmers will be hoping for a wet fall after harvest this year to kind of replenish some of those topsoil moisture reserves."

Livestock water supplies are similarly depleting thanks to the lack of rain.

"There's about 23 per cent of livestock producers in the province right now are concerned about livestock water supplies. They're seeing some shortages in their dugouts and other sources that they get their water for for their animals. So again livestock producers in the province are going to be hoping for a wet fall and lots of snow this winter to kind of replenish those water sources."

The hot and dry weather is also damaging crops with farmers losing yields in a few areas.

"Crop damage continues to be the hot, dry conditions continued to damage crops all throughout the province, mainly in the southwest, southeast, west central, and northwest areas of the province, according to this past week's crop report."

"There have also been some other sources of damage, like grasshopper activity, which is a consequence of hot and dry conditions, some sclerotinia infection kind of spread out throughout the province and in spots, mainly fields that weren't treated with the fungicide during canola flowering. There was some wind damage seen in the province as well."