It has been many years since I first started doing a daily radio commentary. Some of you who read this report on the website or receive the report by email may not realize that this is the text version of a report than runs on various Saskatchewan radio stations. April 29 marks my last radio report. I will still make postings to the website and those who subscribe will still receive the comments for free, but the postings won’t come with the same regularity. As the saying goes, I have too many irons in the fire. I need to cut back somewhere to allow time for other consulting and journalism projects as well as farming. As many of you know, I serve as executive director for the Inland Terminal Association of Canada, the Saskatchewan Mustard Development Commission and the Canaryseed Development Commission of Saskatchewan. I also serve as editor for Farm Credit Canada’s bi-monthly magazine called AgriSuccess. Reluctantly, I’ve made the decision to discontinue the daily radio commentary. That will mean changes in the on-line postings. If I’ve had a bad day in the field or a good day on a beach in Jamaica, there may not be a report. The reports can now be shorter or longer as warranted and they will come at different times of the day. As always, please feel free to shoot me a return email to let me know your thoughts and what’s happening in your world. I’m Kevin Hursh.
I put about 1,200 kilometers on my truck the past couple days on a road trip from southwest Saskatchewan all the way up to Viking, Alberta and back. Along the way, I passed by Leader, Alsask, Marengo, Kindersley, Rosetown and Swift Current on the Saskatchewan side and Oyen, Hanna and Killam on the Alberta side. The highways had an amazing number of air drills being towed to new owners. Some looked new, while others looked like private purchases or auction sale acquisitions. In yard after yard, air drills were hooked to tractors as producers make sure that everything is ready to head to the field. I imagine that a lot of GPS subscriptions are being activated these days. There were still remnants of snow banks in tree rows and most areas have lots of sloughs. There was some field activity. There was a high clearance sprayer near Kyle, although that may have just been someone working on settings. Also near Kyle, a Valmar spreader was going in a field. North of Swift Current, manure trucks were busy hauling and spreading from a cattle operation. It wasn’t until I got back to around Cabri that I actually encountered someone seeding – a neighbour just a few miles from my place. If the weather holds, there will gradually be more activity in the field. I’m Kevin Hursh.
Statistics Canada spent a lot of money doing its Seeding Intentions Report released yesterday, but the report has limited value. A total of 12,600 farmers were surveyed at the end of March to come up with the numbers. The report seems to assume that we will suddenly have a normal year and all the acres we want to seed will be seeded. Thus, summerfallow acreage in Western Canada is forecast to drop from 11.6 million acres last year to just over 5 million acres. A lot of those extra acres that we’ll magically be able to seed are supposed to go into canola. A record 19.2 million acres of canola is expected, up 14 per cent from last year. Saskatchewan, which has the greatest area affected by water, is expected to increase canola acreage by 25 per cent – a whopping two million acres. The actual seeded area will depend on the weather over the next month, but a lot of analysts are discounting the canola prediction. Here are some of the other numbers. Western Canadian durum acreage is expected to increase by 60 per cent after a record low year in 2010. Oats are up 39 per cent, barley is up 13 per cent, field peas are down 20 per cent, while flax is up 30 per cent. In crops where Saskatchewan dominates production, lentils are expected to be down 19 per cent in the province, mustard down 28 per cent and canaryseed up by 8 per cent. In my mind, those numbers have more credibility than the canola estimate. I’m Kevin Hursh.
Here’s an early season test of weather forecasts. On Monday, the Environment Canada forecast sounded quite favourable. There was 30 to 60 per cent chance of some showers for some of the days later in the week for a number of locations, but it didn’t sound like very much precipitation. By contrast, World Weather Inc. issued a forecast Monday morning that sounded quite ominous. While calling for a pleasant start to the week with a few scattered showers, the Kansas-based forecasting service was calling for a winter storm to slam the Prairies later in the week. The storm, moving from Alberta across Saskatchewan and Manitoba was forecast to start as rain and then switch to snow with significant amounts of both over a large region. World Weather Inc. did note that this was an early forecast and there was still time for the projected path and the precipitation amounts to be adjusted. It’ll be interesting to see today’s forecasts from both Environment Canada and World Weather Inc. A lot of producers subscribe to World Weather Inc. reports by Sean Rocheford and Drew Lerner and they’ve proven to be quite accurate in past years. Here’s hoping this time they’re wrong. A storm is the last thing we need right now. I’m Kevin Hursh.
This may come as a surprise to those still suffering from flooding, but if the weather holds, a bit of seeding will take place in Saskatchewan this week. The extreme southwest corner of the province is usually the first out of the gate. Many years, seeding is underway there by the middle of April. This year, the deep southwest corner is still wet. Areas around Shaunavon, Consul and Maple Creek had a pile of snow and it has been slow to leave. Producers who are often in full swing with their seeding won’t be rolling for a while. However, north of the TransCanada highway up to the South Saskatchewan River, there are areas where seeding will soon be feasible. Remnants of snow banks can still be seen in some tree rows and side hills. However, there are weeds popping up in the field and the frogs have started to croak at night. That shows the soil is warming up. If you avoid the sloughs, you can drive across a lot of fields. While field work won’t become general this week, in this pocket of southwest Saskatchewan, there are likely to be some producers who at least get a start on seeding. I’m Kevin Hursh.