Rain welcomed, but too much at once for crops

Crops in northwestern Saskatchewan needed rain, and they got it in the past week. But for some, it was too much too quickly.

According to the crop report for the week ending July 11, the rainfall helped alleviate stress in crops and pastures. The Battlefords area reported 98 mm, or roughly four inches of rain while Meadow Lake had 62 mm. Radisson reported 73 mm, Rabbit Lake 57 mm, and Lloydminster 83 mm. Neilburg, the driest area in the entire province, received 23 mm.

Brent Flaten, an integrated pest management specialist with the Ministry of Agriculture, said it was the northwest that was best able to absorb a heavy rain.

“Although some of the rainfall events were quite high, generally at least some of the rain was welcomed,” he said. “Maybe we could do with a little slower rain rather than the heavy downpours that we got.”

Flaten said there was some localized flooding, including washed out country roads around Lloydminster. He said that was mostly in low spots or places where the ground was saturated.

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Amounts varied considerably in the west-central region. But combined with past rainfall, 22 per cent of the cropland in the region has excess topsoil moisture and 14 per cent of the hay and pasture land. Some crop losses are expected in low-lying areas. In the northwest, nearly all of the crop, hay and pasture land has adequate moisture.

Crops are rated good to excellent in the northwest, and at normal stage of development. Flaten said the pastures in particular have improved. That was general to the case in the wetter areas to the south as well, but he said weather conditions caused some crop damage.

“Both with localized flooding issues, also with lodging where the wind combined with the rain lodged the crops, where they were thick,” Flaten said. “And hopefully those crops will kind of come back up on their own.”

Flaten also said the weather pattern was increasing disease in pulses, peas and lentils, as well as cereals.

Haying continued in the northwest, but producers in the west-central area were forced to stop. Flaten said that would especially hurt the quality of cut hay in the field. But even standing hay is starting to mature, he added, and the quality is on the decline.

“What we want to see is a good stretch of warm, dry weather, both for the hay crop and for the annual crop development,” he said.

Geoff Smith is battlefordsNOW’s News Director, business and agriculture reporter. He can be reached at gsmith@jpbg.ca or tweet him @smithco. Concerns regarding this story can be addressed to Geoff at 306-446-6397.