By François Biber

Sask. farmer not panicking over dry weather

Jun 5, 2015 | 6:55 AM

Talk to any farmer in Saskatchewan and they’ll tell you the same thing, it’s been extremely dry this spring.

“In our area we’ve been drier than usual and it’s been welcome up until now,” said Kerry Peterson, who runs a 6,000 acre farm in Shellbrook, about 130 kilometres north of Saskatoon.

“We’re a long ways away from losing the crop or anything like that, the problem is … we had a strong frost on May 29 that caused a lot of damage in our areas especially on canola. So the heat is welcome, but we need rain to help that plant recover.”

Ideally, what Peterson said farmers need right now is just a quick sprinkle of rain to keep the ground moist.

“Usually an inch of rain at this time of year is nice – 25 millimetres of rain over a day period would be perfect,” Peterson said.

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This week the province said seeding was 97 per cent complete.

In his 26 years of farming, he remembers one year where the first spring rainfall didn’t come until Father’s Day.

“We’re still a couple of weeks away from that and those years turned out to be OK yield-wise, so I don’t think anyone has started to panic just yet in our area and there’s nothing you can do to change anything at this point anyway.”

So it’s simply a waiting game and the more dry days that go by, the only thing growing are concerns from farmers.

“Ag producers in Western Canada put everything on the line to put the crop in and expenses are huge and the risks are even greater so it’s a high-risk business and there’s a lot of uncertainty throughout the growing season and it’s like that every year,” he said.

This weekend’s forecast is calling for more heat with little chance of rain.

Driest May on Record

Last month was the driest May on record at the Saskatoon airport.

The airport only got 0.4 millimetres (mm) of rain when they usually see 43 millimeters including two centimeters of snow. Some areas of the city did get more rain, like the Saskatchewan Research Council location which received 17 mm of precipitation.

Environment Canada’s Terri Lang sad it’s all caused by an El Niño.

“There is (an El Niño) that has developed and they’re calling it a moderate El Niño event and that generally gives warmer conditions than average and dryer conditions,” she said.

The drought is part of a general pattern on dryness across western Canada.

 While Regina received 9.5 mm of rain over eight days, which doesn’t even make it into the top 10 driest Mays for the city, Saskatoon only had one day of measurable rain.

Lang said so far, there’s no relief in the forecast and Saskatoon may only receive some conductive showers that will come in short bursts rather than a prolonged shower.

– With files from Lasia Kretzel and Bre McAdam 

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