Manitoba Agriculture reports that warm, windy and dry weather over the past week has allowed the province’s farmers to make rapid progress in spring planting.
Sonia Wilson, an oilseed specialist with Manitoba Agriculture, says we didn’t have a lot of rainfall in most areas over the past week so everyone took advantage of that opportunity to plant acres and we’re now sitting at about 32 to 33 percent seeded across the province.
This spring, in contrast to last spring, we’re seeing higher warmer temperatures and the wind which is causing the top inches in the soil to dry out more quickly. In contrast, last spring we had much more cold and wet conditions. This spring we are seeing the emerging plants; they are doing quite well. But, as we moving into some of the smaller seeds, for example like canola, flax, etcetera, we’re really looking for some of that rainfall to come down to help aid them in their germination and I think there is rainfall is in the forecast for a lot of areas.
As I mentioned, we had a low amount of rainfall with the most seen in the central and southwest sitting at about 10 to 12 millimeters over the past week but, overall, this spring, we have had less than 20 millimeters of precipitation since May 1st across agro Manitoba. That’s below normal and we are definitely ahead of our five-year average of 25 percent seeded by this point as we are sitting at the 32 to 33 percent compete.
~ Sonia Wilson, Manitoba Agriculture
Wilson says, depending on rainfall over the next week, we’ll see crops that were close to being finished like spring wheat, field peas, oats and barley completed, more canola acres going in and we’re seeing growers moving into soybean and sunflower seeding.
