Glacier FarmMedia | MarketsFarm — The Manitoba government’s pulse specialist said conditions are looking good with as little as two weeks before seeding begins.
Dennis Lange said farmers are currently making final preparations before planting pulses, despite early April swings in weather conditions, ranging from light snowfall to high temperatures in the mid-teens to early-20s. He noted peas will be one of the first crops in the ground.
“We’re still a little ways off yet. Maybe by early May for sure, we’ll see farmers in the fields unless something dramatic happens over the next two weeks,” Lange added. “The only snow you have right now is around some of the yard sites. It’s really disappearing quickly, but … we’ve only had a couple of nice warm days.”
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Since Nov. 1, most growing regions in Manitoba have had below-normal precipitation, primarily in parts of the Interlake, Lange said. He added that most places have seen precipitation levels at 90 per cent of normal or less.
“For the most part, (people) kind of want to wait and see what happens,” he said. “I haven’t seen a lot of soil moving this spring yet, which is a good thing. If we see some dry weather, then we’ll see what happens.”
A stretch of three or four days of warmer weather could convince growers to start seeding sooner than later. Nevertheless, most growers are still targeting late April or early May to begin planting.
“That will change things dramatically because you can get some warm, windy weather and things dry pretty quickly here,” Lange said. “We’re in April. You don’t expect to see much happening before the 15th of April in a normal year. We’re looking at early May right now (for the start of seeding), but we’ll see how things progress.”
