Manitoba Agriculture reports crop damage in areas hit by excessive rain will be assessed over the next week or so as standing water recedes.
Dennis Lange, a provincial pulse and soybean specialist with Manitoba agriculture and editor of the provincial crop report, says seeding has moved forward.
We’re sitting right now at about 93 percent complete around the province. The areas in the northwest, they’ve had very slow progress as of late because of the excess rain they’ve had in those areas so there’s still some more planting to go up in that area. And more recently, just since the crop report came out overnight, there’s been some major weather events in the Stonewall area with some significant large amounts of rainfall, upwards of 10 inches. That’s changed things a little bit as far as crop conditions go, but we’re still evaluating the situation yet and it’ll take a few days before the water goes down and we have any further comments on that.
Over the last week, we have seen some warmer temperatures and that’s really seen the crop progress. Right after the crop report came out last week actually, we got some areas in the south got some bigger rains, two-inch rains and those crops that have recovered, the drains are gone in those areas but they’re not doing too bad considering all things. Moisture has been variable all over the province this year, some areas excessive, some areas just about right.
Crop is progressing. With the heat that we’ve had, it’s really helped things catch up a little bit, if you want to call it that. And I think for the most part, we’re just going to have to evaluate how this season is going to go because we’re still early in the season. Lots of time left, but it’s been a very interesting year so far.
~ Dennis Lange, Manitoba Agriculture
Lange says there have been minimal insect or disease challenges so far but some isolated hail events have been reported throughout the province. He says areas that received excessive rain will be evaluated over the next week or so and warmer conditions will help crop progression and hopefully no more big rain events.
