Canada: Moisture welcome, but some areas receive too much

The 2024 growing season for many Prairie farmers is characterized by the old saying, it never rains but it pours.

Most of Manitoba has received far beyond 100 per cent of normal rainfall, leading to unseeded acres and flooded crops. Saskatchewan’s most recent crop report highlighted crop flooding in low lying areas and listed excess moisture as the main cause of damage.

Alberta reported surface soil moisture at 75 per cent good to excellent, up from 64 per cent in early May.

It’s all good news for those who have had drought for several years, although there are still areas reporting extremely dry conditions.

They can only watch and wonder how the conditions changed so drastically.

“My pulse acres … I’d say the best way to describe it is they look decent for what they’ve been through,” Stuart Lawrence, vice-chair of SaskPulse, said last week.

He farms near Rosetown and had seen drought for the last several years until more than 250 millimetres of rain fell this spring.

With more rain this year than the previous three years combined, he has water runs in his fields, ponds containing dead lentils and crop with root rot in the air seeder wheel tracks.

A moisture probe in one of his canola fields has indicated saturation every day since June 2, he said.

This is his 35th crop, so he’s seen it all before.

“Every drought that we’ve ever had ends like this,” he said.

In 2009 he saw only 50 mm of rain, followed by 760 mm in 2010, he said.

Others in the area are also affected, with chickpeas, durum and canola flooded out or suffering from disease.

“From what I’m hearing, the lentils are the worst (affected),” Lawrence said.

He’s also hearing of farmers who have received far more rain than he has.

It’s been cold, with frost in his area June 9 and in the northeast as late as the end of the month. Seeding was late; he didn’t finish until June 15.

Crop development has been hindered.

“If I could order a forecast, I would take a week of sunshine,” he said.

That did materialize earlier this week, and the heat will be welcome news except for those who are still experiencing drought. There are parts of Saskatchewan that have received about 50 mm or less and need more moisture to keep their crops going through the heat.

Lawrence believes his crop will outyield last year but perhaps not by much because of lost acres.

He added he noticed other changes with the switch from dry to wet weather. There are more owls, gophers, coyotes and foxes in the area, and for the first spring in a long time he didn’t see a moose. There are white-tailed deer this year, but not typically.

“I’m seeing birds I’ve never seen before,” he said.

To the south and west, his SaskPulse board colleague Shaun Dyrland said he is shocked at how well his crop is doing this year with some moisture but not too much.

“We are pretty well perfect right now,” he said. “Root rot hasn’t been rearing its ugly head.”

Another common saying is be careful what you wish for. Farmers have been hoping for heat, and this week’s heat wave will have other effects on their crops.

Tags: canola, rainfall, Manitoba, chickpeas, Saskatchewan, Alberta, durum, Prairie, lentils, rains