(Resource News International) — Below-normal temperatures, combined with excessively wet conditions in northern areas, have prevented producers in Western Canada from actively getting seeding operations off and running.
Seeding operations across the Prairies were already well underway at this time a year ago, observers noted.
“Temperatures at this time a year ago were 24°C and producers were already well into getting their various crops into the ground,” said Mike Jubinville, an analyst with the farmer advisory service ProFarmer Canada in Winnipeg.
Temperatures this year, meanwhile, have been below normal and in turn have kept soil readings cool. Soil temperatures kept producers in the central and southern regions of the Prairie provinces from making any kind of seeding progress, Jubinville said.
Read Also
VIDEO: Green Lightning and Nytro Ag win sustainability innovation award
Nytro Ag Corp and Green Lightning recieved an innovation award at Ag in Motion 2025 for the Green Lightning Nitrogen Machine, which converts atmospheric nitrogen into a plant-usable form.
The cool temperatures have also slowed the snowmelt in the more northerly regions of the Prairies, said Bruce Burnett, director of the Canadian Wheat Board’s weather and crop surveillance department in Winnipeg.
“It is not unusual for the northern regions of the Prairies to be behind, but the cool temperatures and recent precipitation, are causing some unexpected delays,” he said.
Both Burnett and Jubinville said unexpected heavy snowfalls in Alberta, Saskatchewan and parts of Manitoba the previous week failed to significantly alleviate the dry soil moisture situation in those provinces.
“The moisture did little to shift the drought concerns,” Burnett said.
He acknowledged that the unexpected snowfall did translate into some beneficial moisture for isolated areas south of the Trans-Canada Highway, particularly between Swift Current, Sask. and Medicine Hat, Alta., and possibly around the Lethbridge region. However, overall, more moisture had been required to alleviate dry soil conditions.
Precipitation maps from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada also confirmed that very little precipitation was received from the winter storm which covered much of Western Canada.
The greatest amount of moisture, nearly two inches, fell in a small area southwest of the Battlefords in Saskatchewan. Some other isolated regions in Saskatchewan received about an inch of measurable precipitation. Other areas of western Saskatchewan, meanwhile, had quite a bit of snow, but moisture totals were not much more than half an inch, the maps showed.
The cold temperatures and moisture were seen causing seeding delays of at least another couple of weeks in the more northerly areas of the Prairies, Burnett said.
Jubinville felt that as long as producers in Western Canada were seeding by the second week of May, that was still plenty of time for the crop to grow and be harvested before frost in the fall.
However, both he and Burnett said, anything beyond that time frame would be cause for concern.
