Seeding is semi-officially underway in Saskatchewan as farmers in some southern areas of the province have begun seeding peas and lentils in the past week.

"Warm and favourable weather" has allowed field work to proceed, the provincial ag ministry said in a release Thursday. "However, the majority of producers will be waiting a few more weeks for the soil to dry up before they can begin seeding."

East-central and southeastern regions got the greatest amount of precipitation in the past week, with up to 41 millimetres reported in some areas, the province said.

Crop reporters in some east-central areas report a surplus of moisture and some areas in the west-central and northwest regions are short of topsoil moisture on cropland, hay land and pasture, the province said.

Pasture conditions in most crop districts are "good to excellent" and there is an adequate supply of water for livestock, the province said.

FREE DRAW: SEEDING YET?

Let us know BY EMAIL if you're seeding. We'd love to hear more about when you started, where you are, why you're going now instead of later, what you're seeding, how far you are along and whether your field conditions have been slowing you down.

OR, if you're NOT seeding, let us know why, and when you hope to get underway -- or give us an idea of what the field conditions are like in your area.

Seeding or not, if you've got a good photo from your area, we'd sure like to see those too; let us know the date, location and what's being seeded (or not).

Your photos and/or reports will be entered in weekly draws starting Friday, May 4.

Where to Send Email: To send email, click HERE.

The Prizes: You can win one of 16 stylish, collector's-item caps. We have three each with the Country Guide, Grainews and Canadian Cattlemen logos, plus three each with the second-most-recent Manitoba Co-operator and Alberta Farmer Express logos and, for good measure, a couple of caps from the former Canola Guide.

We'll give away up to four caps per weekly draw until 16 are gone, and keep the 17th one. Once all the caps of a certain brand are mailed, they're gone -- so when you enter the draw, be sure to let us know your first, second and maybe third choice of cap. We cannot guarantee that the caps winners receive will be any of their choices.

Rules and Disclaimers: This contest is NOT intended to encourage or induce entrants, or anyone else, to start seeding or to undertake any work other than sending email and/or taking photographs.

Whether they win a cap or not, we would like to publish some of the emails and photos we receive. Entries in the cap draw MUST include your first and last name and exact postal address with postal code -- but we will only name your town, when or if we publish your email or photo.

If you don't want to be identified, please keep in mind that we will NOT blur faces or black out any identifying features in photos.

Emails that provide no name or postal address, or that provide no valid information at all for the purposes of this contest (for example, "We're not seeding yet because we don't grow crops, LOL" or "Not seeding cos Im not a farmer ;P") will be excluded from the draws at the editor's discretion.

Weekly draws will take place each Friday at 5 p.m. CT (Winnipeg time) until 16 caps have been won. Individual email entries will be assigned numbers for draw purposes.

Eligibility: This draw is open to all Canadian residents, ages 18 and older, excluding residents of Quebec.

Limit: One entry per day per email address.

Privacy Policy: Submitting an e-mail request through this website entitles you to receive correspondence from Farm Business Communications. If you send us an e-mail message, we may retain that message and your e-mail address, as well as any response we send you. From time to time we may use email as a way to keep in touch with our existing customers and other interested individuals.

Receiving correspondence is optional. You may opt out of being included in our mailing list, even after granting prior permission, by sending an e-mail request to our privacy officer. If you prefer to contact Farm Business Communications by regular postal mail, please write to: Privacy Officer, c/o Farm Business Communications, 1666 Dublin Ave., Winnipeg, MB R3H OH1, or phone 204-944-5765.