Rain puts off seeding for frustrated farmers in southern Saskatchewan

The rain clouds spelled gloom Friday for Lee Stanley, a farmer in the Carievale-Gainsborough area.

“We don’t get too much rain in this country, but we get it at the wrong time,” Stanley said.

Now is the wrong time for that moisture because Stanley, like other farmers, is trying to seed his wheat, canola and oat crops.

Stanley said the rain is still better than being in a drought, but it brought his operations to a halt on Thursday around 8 p.m.

It’s been raining hard ever since, according to the farmer.

“We won’t be able to get back on the land for a few days,” he said.

Originally, rain in the quantity of 100 millimetres was forecast for Stanley’s area. He thinks the region will get closer to half of that. About an inch — 25 mm — had already fallen as of Friday.

The farmer’s distress over the rainfall comes because of the limited window in which farmers have to get crops in the ground. With it taking 90 to 100 days for a crop to mature, he said farmers have to consider being able to harvest their crops before the frost hits in the fall.

“When we’re dry, we need the moisture to grow a crop,” Stanley said. “But we’re selfish and we’d like to get our work done before and let it rain after the crop is in.”

According to the year’s first crop report — which was issued Thursday — nine per cent of the crop is in the ground in the province, well behind the five-year average of 23 per cent for this time of year.

The report said seeding is furthest ahead in the northwest (17 per cent), west-central (14 per cent) and southwest (13 per cent) regions.

Seeding is behind in the eastern half of the province, where there was more snow in the winter, and water in the fields took longer to disappear.

Farmers were seven per cent done in the northeast, while producers in the southeast (three per cent) and east-central (three per cent) regions were still dealing with water in the fields.

Stanley farms in the southeast, which remained under a rainfall warning Friday.

“A developing Colorado low tracking north has brought heavy rainfall to south-central and southeast Saskatchewan,” the warning from Environment Canada said. “The precipitation will continue (Friday) before tapering off late Saturday.

“With widespread rainfall totals of 40-60 mm expected, and pockets of higher amounts expected, localized flooding will be possible.”