Robert Tappauf would normally be well into seeding by now, but this year’s cold and wet has him sitting on his haunches.
“It’s way behind,” the Sturgeon County farmer says of this year’s planting — about two to three weeks by his estimate. Cold temperatures and late snows have kept his fields wet, making them unfit for fresh seed. “The water is running [off]. It’s not soaking in.”
Most of the Prairies have been about 1 to 8 C below normal for the last few weeks, according to the most recent Canadian Wheat Board bulletin, which has made for a slow melt and slower thaw. Wheat and barley farmers had seeded about two per cent of their fields as of this week — they’d planted about 10 per cent of them by this time last year.
Sturgeon County farmers were full-seed ahead this time last year, says AndrĂ© Montpetit of Sturgeon Valley Fertilizer, but are still about two weeks from the starting line this season. “Forget the wet, there’s still snow [out]!”
Planting season has started as late as May 23 in the past, Montpetit says, so this is not a super-late start. “A lot of farmers I’ve been talking to at work are saying we’re getting back to what it used to be like in the 1980s and 1970s,” he says. “We’ve just been really spoiled with prime seeding conditions these past few years.”
Most of the county is now at or near normal levels for soil moisture, says Alberta Agriculture soil moisture specialist Ralph Wright, with the northeast and northwest corners slightly below. “The Peace has rebounded quite significantly,” he notes, and is now back to near-normal conditions after years of drought. “We just need to start getting the frost out of the ground and getting people to seed.”
It’s quite unusual for us to still have winter snow left on the ground at this time of year, Wright says; late snow plus cold weather were to blame. Don’t be surprised to see more white stuff this month, he adds — about half of our May moisture usually falls as snow.
Moisture levels are now at around optimum levels for seeding, Wright says. If he could order up some weather, he’d dial in warm, dry conditions for May followed by a wet June. “So far, so good.”
There’s no telling yet how the late start will affect this year’s crop, Tappauf says. A warm summer could help the plants make up for lost time, while a cold one would put them at risk of an early frost. “A lot of people say this could still be a dry year,” he notes, which would cut into yields.
Moist soil will also let farmers seed closer to the surface, Montpetit notes, which means their crops will sprout faster. Fields should be dry enough to start seeding in around the second week of May, he and Tappauf predict.
Visit www.agric.gov.ab.ca for the latest temperature and moisture maps.
