Recent rainfall a drop in the bucket for southwest Saskatchewan farmers

Despite some recent rainfall, conditions remain bleak in southwestern Saskatchewan.

Larry Grant, Reeve of Val Marie, said while rain is a good sign, the area will need much more to have any serious effect.

“We get a few more hot days, like we had the day before yesterday, and it’s going to fry everything because there’s no reserve moisture in the ground,” Grant said.

“We need some substantial rain, not little showers that come through for half an hour in the afternoon, we need some four or five day rains of an inch a day.”

Read more:

• Sask. producers struggling with dry conditions despite rainstorms: Crop Report
• ‘Can’t buy your way out of drought’: Southwest farmers continue to deal with dry conditions
• ‘This is different’: Southwest Sask. farmers call for help after nearly a decade of drought

Grant said some crops are doing much better than others.

“None of the hay fields are going to benefit much from substantial rain this fall, because a lot of the damage has already been done,” he said. “The hay crops—ranchers and farmers are baling that hay up. There might be some regrowth, but the hay crop is basically you’ve got what you’re going to get.”

“Some of the later-seeded crops would benefit, though, from substantial rain.”

As for how farmers in the Southwest are feeling with yet another year of drought, Grant said that hope is beginning to dwindle.

“A lot of them don’t have much faith in weather forecasts, because there’s been a lot of rain forecast for the southwest part of the province, and most of the time it hasn’t come,” he said.

“They’re skeptical until the rain is actually hitting them in the face; they’re not really big believers in the forecast.”

But it’s not just the weather having an effect; it’s also the prices. Grant gave an example of how the price of hay seems to be increasing.

“I just talked to a guy down in Manitoba, he wants 10 cents a pound, which is 200 a ton. Then you add in freight at nine or 10 a mile, which the truckers are wanting, and it makes it pretty tough,” he said.

According to last week’s crop report, the provincial government states that the southwestern corner of the province is experiencing the poorest pasture conditions in Saskatchewan this year due to the extremely dry conditions.

Only nine percent of pastures are in good condition, while 26 percent are fair, 46 percent are poor and 19 percent are very poor.

Those extremely dry conditions and hot temperatures are expected to continue to cause the most damage to crops, with damage being anywhere from minor to severe in some areas.

The area is also seeing some minor to moderate damage from things like wind and gophers as well as minor to moderate cabbage seed pod weevil and grasshopper activity.