First farmers in southeast Saskatchewan had to deal with too much moisture, and after receiving continued heat and humidity farmers are concerned for their haying and crop development. "Our crops are going to need a drink soon," said Brad Eggum.
First farmers in southeast Saskatchewan had to deal with too much moisture, and after receiving continued heat and humidity farmers are concerned for their haying and crop development.
"Our crops are going to need a drink soon," said Brad Eggum. Despite flooding issues, he seeded 400 acres on his land, all of that on high ground. "There is no heat stress to be concerned about yet, but we are close to where the crops might struggle without some moisture."
"We started the year unbelievable wet, and have now turned the corner and are not used to the heat," said Elaine Moats, crop specialist for the Weyburn area. She added that "as strange as it sounds, we are hoping for rain again for the crops."
One of the advantages of the drier weather, is that "it helped us do more field operations, mostly we have been spraying for weeds on all of our unseeded acres," said Eggum. "The worse culprits (for weeds) are the curled dock and foxtail barley."
"It would have been nice to get out two weeks earlier for our spraying operations. Those acres that were sprayed pre-harvest are not in bad shape, and will need minimal tillage."
"Most of our grain producers are doing tillage, or applying herbicide to get their fields back into shape for the next crop season," noted Moats. "Others are planting cover crops since they will protect the ground from erosion, and something growing on their unseeded acres will use that moisture."
"Field dock weeds are also causing problems for farmers because their stems are quite course and can cause problems by bunching up in the equipment," added Moats. "Farmers are either mowing or swathing this weed to get it out of the way. Some are using a heavier tillage like a double-discer."
The warm weather is allowing farmers to complete more of their haying operations. "It is going decent, we are now getting to the back end," said Eggum. "Hay crops are a decent quality, and volume wise they are quite adequate."
"One of the large factors in haying is time because farmers usually want to do it when the hay crops are highest in protein," said Moats. "The cool period earlier this year had delayed blooming of the alfalfa, and haying operations started two weeks later than usual. Now that we have hot weather, the alfalfa has rapidly advanced, and farmers are having difficulties keeping up to time demands."
According to the weekly crop report from the Ministry of Agriculture, 22 per cent of the hay has been cut and 32 per cent baled or put into silage in the southeast region. High humidity is slowing the drying process. Farmers have rated hay as being 86 per cent in good to excellent in quality.
The average hay yields on dry land are reported as 2.2 tons per acre for alfalfa, 2.3 tons per acre for alfalfa and brome, 1.9 tons per acre for other tame, 1.5 tons per acre for wild and 1.7 tons per acre for greenfeed. No numbers have been reported for irrigated land in the southeast.
As for other crops that are maturing, 79 per cent of the fall cereals and 52 per cent of the spring cereals are reported to be good to excellent condition. There are 50 per cent of the oilseed crops and 35 per cent of pulses reported to be in good to excellent condition.
"The ground was so wet that the soil turned mushy and lost its texture, so when the heat hit it, the soil turned hard and the surface just baked," explained Moats. "For late-seeded crops, the hard surface is making it difficult for proper emergence."
Topsoil moisture conditions on crop land is rated as 16 per cent surplus, 78 per cent adequate and six per cent short. Hay and pasture land is rated as nine per cent surplus, 80 per cent adequate and 11 per cent short.
Due to wet conditions during the spring resulting in the loss of crops seeded, some farmers are considering planting winter wheat and fall rye. Moats warned producers to wait until late August or early September to plant their winter wheat, as it is better disease management for the wheat streak mosaic virus.
"The viral disease is spread by curl mite, which needs a green crop to survive, and can be blown onto other crops from winter wheat acres," explained Moats. "The best way to manage the disease is to ensure there is no green cereals crop around your winter wheat."
Green crop will naturally die off by farmers waiting until later in the season, allowing for a safer seeding of winter wheat.
