Farmers in southeast, southwest Saskatchewan facing different situations

After last year’s drought, Lee Stanley is saying something he never thought he would say again.

“It seems strange to say after last year, but we were happy to miss the rainfall this time,” Stanley told the Greg Morgan Morning Show on Monday, referring to a storm that was forecast to hit the area on the weekend.

“It all seemed to go to Manitoba and we had basically just sunshine and warm, dry winds, which is exactly what the doctor ordered.”

Stanley farms near Gainsborough in southeast Saskatchewan, an area of the province that has dealt with a number of winter storms during April.

But Stanley now hopes that sort of weather is behind them.

“I hope I’m not making a huge mistake. I’m currently taking the snowblade and the snowblower off the tractor right now,” Stanley said.

He said that as of now, there is a lot of moisture in his fields.

“It’s a lot better than last year when everything was burning up. This corner wasn’t as bad of a drought as everywhere else. We had a bit of moisture around and we got just hammered there for the next three weeks,” Stanley said. “It’s going to be a wet spring but it’s nothing we haven’t dealt with before.”

Stanley said he has a number of things he’s still got to do before he can start seeding.

“It’s pretty well-established it’s going to be 10 or 14 days before we can get much going here. Everyone thinks it’s going to be mid-May. We’re hoping we can get going quicker with this forecast for warm temperatures and sunshine,” Stanley said.

“We just play it by ear and we can’t go out too early or we just bog everything in.”

Meanwhile, farmers in southwest Saskatchewan are already looking to the sky for rain as they begin spring seeding.

Keith Holler, who farms 15 kilometres north of Elrose, is preparing to seed his 48th crop into some of the driest conditions he has ever seen.

“I would say this is about the third-driest spring I’ve seen in my career,” Holler said. “1988 was a severe drought, 2002 was dry and then this year.”

Holler harvested a crop after last year’s drought, but he might not be as lucky this year if the rains don’t come at the right time.

He estimates his fields are holding about two to three weeks worth of moisture this spring.

“Most of our fields, the top inch of the ground is bone dry and then there are about seven to eight inches of moist soil. After that, it’s dry dirt,” said Holler, who’s preparing to plant his wheat, canola, yellow mustard, barley and lentil crops this week.

“The big thing is to get the crop in the ground in a timely fashion and see if we can get it established up out of the ground. Hopefully, we see the rains come after that.”

While farmers don’t want to see a repeat of last year’s severe drought, in the end, the weather is out of their control.

Holler said he has learned to accept that over his nearly five decades on the farm.

“If you let the stress of farming get to you,” he said, “it would be really unhealthy for you.”

— With files from 650 CKOM’s Brent Bosker