By Alice McFarlane

Manitoba farmers look for rain to replenish soil as seeding begins

Apr 28, 2021 | 2:32 PM

MELFORT, Sask. – Dry soil conditions continue to be a concern for Manitoba farmers as seeding gets underway.

The province’s first crop report of the season indicated a lack of overwinter snow accumulation and early snow melt has resulted in poor moisture concerns.

Dane Froese compiles the Manitoba Agriculture weekly crop report. He said livestock producers explained pasture regrowth will depend on the amount of moisture and heat.

“Cattle that are still in corrals or in the yard have adequate feed supplies. However, if regrowth doesn’t occur soon, some producers might run into a bit of a shortage situation where they are forced to turn cattle out early due to a lack of overwintering feed left,” Froese said.

Cool soils have slowed the start of seeding. Froese said most farmers are planning on starting to seed this week. Provincial seeding progress sits at two per cent mostly in the Central, Interlake and Southwest regions. Eastern Manitoba has adequate seedbed moisture.

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Froese said conserving existing soil moisture remains a priority as many farmers are using limited disturbance openers for fertilizer and seeding, wherever possible.

Fall rye appears to have over wintered very well. Froese said winter cereal survival seems good.

“In most regions, regrowth is still limited due to cool soil conditions and lack of available moisture. If we get a little rain and little sunshine and heat on it, we’ll start to see regrowth happening a lot quicker,” he said. “We’ll have a much better estimation of what has survived but right now it does seem to be fairly good.”

The complete crop report is available here.

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alice.mcfarlane@pattisonmedia.com

On Twitter: @farmnewsNOW