“I checked the soil temperatures this morning across the Prairies and most of the soils are about -10 C and winter wheat at this stage can still handle that level of coldness…so I think in most areas we are still OK,” Ken Gross said.

Winter wheat can handle soil temperatures as cold as -16 C, said Gross, a director with Winter Cereals Manitoba and agrologist with Ducks Unlimited Canada.

Temperatures throughout the winter in Western Canada have dipped to the -30 C to -40 C range numerous times — and most of the Prairies south of the Trans-Canada Highway have been plagued with little to no snow cover.

“There’s a general lack of snow cover across the southern Prairies. So it sure would be nice to alleviate our concerns if we got a little bit of snow and hopefully warm up a little bit here too,” Gross said.

The Drought Monitor map from Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada as of Jan. 31 shows a dismal picture, with severe drought conditions in a pocket in southern Alberta and throughout south-central Saskatchewan, and extreme drought conditions around Regina and Weyburn.

The news is better in Manitoba, where there are only moderate drought conditions in the province’s southwest.

North of Winnipeg, meanwhile, there has been adequate snow cover blanketing the fields for most of the winter.

“Up here in our area we’ve had good snow cover for most of the year. So anyone who put winter wheat in I think is going to be OK so far,” said Doug Martin, interim executive director of Winter Cereals Manitoba and a farmer near East Selkirk.

There is still a chance winter wheat crops could be damaged. As the season progresses, winter wheat tends to lose its hardiness.

“March is more of a month that can do more damage on the winter wheat. So that’s where we’ve seen in past years more of the damage,” Martin said.

For the drier areas, if the winter continues without snow, producers should plan to apply nitrogen as soon as possible in the spring, according to Gross.

“If the crop is coming out of the winter a little bit weak, it needs a little bit help… the fertility will help it grow quickly and move through that very successfully.”

The lack of moisture isn’t just affecting Canadian winter wheat; south of the border crops are struggling as well. The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s wheat outlook report, released Monday, notes no significant precipitation in the last four months across the southern Plains, causing further deterioration of winter wheat.

According to Gross, the U.S. usually loses about 10 per cent of its winter wheat crop each year to winterkill.

U.S. growers, according to USDA’s Monday report, seeded 32.6 million acres of winter wheat, down one per cent from 2017.

In Canada, winter wheat acres are down as well. According to Statistics Canada, 335,000 acres of winter wheat were seeded in the fall in Western Canada, compared to 535,000 acres the previous year.

This isn’t surprising to Gross. Farmers told him they hadn’t seeded as much winter wheat due to dry conditions which plagued the Prairies last summer.

“There was interest in seeding winter wheat last fall but it was just so dry it was hard,” he said. “Guys were really reticent to get out there and seed into concrete.”

— Ashley Robinson writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Glacier FarmMedia company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting. Follow her at @AshleyMR1993 on Twitter.

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“Southern Alberta is the most advanced, and (farmers) have been plugging away for as long as two weeks in some areas,” said Mark Cutts, a crop specialist with the provincial Ag-Info Centre.

Producers in central Alberta were also getting started, he added, while activity was limited moving north.

Cutts noted that soil temperatures are now consistently above 5 C, while recent precipitation in the eastern part of the province was favourable and should help kickstart seeding in earnest during the first week of May.

“Once we hit May, everybody will start to gear up,” he said.

The weekend rains were welcomed where they fell, but Cutts said there are still dry areas that extend into the northern Peace region of the province.

There was enough moisture in the ground for germination, he said, but timely rains will be needed going forward through the growing season.

Cutts said it was still too early to put a number on the seeding progress, with the first official crop report likely out in the next week or two.

In southern Alberta, he said, peas are going in the ground first, with wheat the next most common crop at this time of year.

Canola is more sensitive to frost, which should keep farmers holding off on planting a little longer, he added.

— Phil Franz-Warkentin writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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Manitoba’s water stewardship department announced Friday it will further extend its nutrient application window until midnight, Nov. 19.

Variances to Manitoba’s winter fertilizing ban — which typically runs Nov. 10 to April 10 — are granted for forms of nutrients such as livestock manure and inorganic fertilizer, based on actual soil temperatures, the presence of snow cover and the long-term weather forecast.

The province on Monday had already extended the window, to Saturday (Nov. 14).

During the extension period, however, nutrients can only be surface-applied if immediately incorporated, and shouldn’t be applied if the weather outlook indicates snow or an “appreciable amount of rainfall” that would result in fertilizer runoff into watercourses or lakes.

Saskatchewan’s highways and infrastructure ministry, also on Friday, said that due to the “unseasonably warm fall,” its winter weight allowances will not come into effect until Dec. 1 or “until the roadbeds are sufficiently frozen.”

Road structures will be monitored throughout the province on an ongoing basis to determine when winter weights can be implemented, the ministry said.

Colder temperatures freeze and strengthen road structures and allow for heavier loads on the highway network. Until the roads are frozen, however, the extra weight from fully-loaded grain trucks and other heavy loads can damage pavement and road structures. — AGCanada.com Network

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Up to 30 centimetres of snow fell in and around Saskatoon on Saturday and Sunday, knocking out power in some areas.

“Before the snow things were looking fairly good, because we were starting to get some drier weather with heavy winds,” said Daphne Cruise, a crop management specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture in Moose Jaw. She estimated the snow will delay seeding by at least five days.

If there is no more rain or snow, that would still allow farmers to get on their fields at around the average time. The southeast corner aside, “most of Saskatchewan likes to get into their fields by the first week of May,” she said.

The moisture will help later in the growing season, but is a mixed blessing at this time of year as an early snowmelt had many people eager to get started early, said Cruise.

The province’s southeast corner is still dealing with excess moisture, which could create some difficulties with seeding, but the area missed most of the latest precipitation, she said.

Southwestern Saskatchewan is drier, having missed any significant snow or rain, and producers there have already been seeding for some time. “Typically the southwest is ahead of everybody else, and it’s no different this year.”

In Alberta, seeding is underway in the southern half of the province, but has not progressed that far north, according to Neil Whatley with the Alberta Ag-Info Centre in Stettler.

Peas and wheat were up to 70 per cent seeded already in the far south, he said, with canola the next to go in the ground.

Nearby forecasts look warm and dry across most of Alberta, which should allow soil temperatures to warm up and seeding operations to move northward, said Whatley.

In Manitoba, a relatively dry spring has allowed farmers to start seeding a bit earlier than normal across much of the province, according to reports.

Weather forecasts calling for sunny skies and above-seasonal temperatures over the next week will help warm soils even more, as planting becomes more widespread.

— Phil Franz-Warkentin writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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“Some guys are just starting to turn a wheel in southern Alberta,” Harry Brook, crop specialist with Alberta’s provincial Ag-Info Centre in Stettler, said Thursday.

Soil temperatures are still not very warm, so more province-wide planting won’t likely begin until the middle of April — still earlier than normal.

“In central Alberta, we would probably be starting maybe late April, early May, normally. And I think we might be starting maybe a week early” this year, Brook said.

Alberta farmers, in the south especially, are risking planting earlier than normal this year, though there’s still a chance of frost and snow in many regions.

“A lot of years, the May long weekend, we get snow,” he said, referring to Victoria Day, which this year falls on May 18.

“We’re not really out of the woods yet, and there’s a lot of weather between now and the May long weekend.”

The first crops to go in will likely be pulses, with peas a popular option to go in first because they will germinate at lower soil temperatures, he added.

Wheat and canola are also popular options to go in the ground early, with crops such as barley and oats following once pulses, canola and wheat are finished.

Winter wheat crops seeded last fall are also affected by the early arrival of spring, as they’ve started to come out of dormancy already in Alberta.

“It’s starting to green up and maybe just starting to come out of dormancy,” Brook said. “It’s maybe a little early, but as long as the crown is in good health, it can handle a bit of frost.”

— Terryn Shiells writes for Commodity News Service Canada, a Winnipeg company specializing in grain and commodity market reporting.

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“Last year, more than half the (canola) acres were seeded after May 20,” said Neil Whatley.

“We’ve got lots of time until freeze-up in the fall. There’s no use panicking or even thinking about that right now.”

The cool spring helped prevent evaporation from the soil, so most of the province went into the spring with above-average soil moisture levels, he said.

“Soil moisture conditions are good,” said Whatley, adding that he’s not aware of any flooded areas yet.

But the cool weather also kept soil temperatures down, and “a person doesn’t want to seed into too cold soil.”

Southern Alberta producers have experienced the greatest delay “simply because they usually get going earlier,” he said. “They’re about five to seven days behind average.”

Central Alberta was “a little behind, only maybe five per cent or so,” while areas in the north were right on track.

But if some crops are still behind schedule, producers may need to start making some tough decisions about their cropping options, said Colin Bergstrom, president of Point Forward Solutions.

“(When) seeding dates start getting late, you might see a switch out from wheat to canola or to barley — something a little shorter season.”

Some acres that were slated for faba beans — a long-season crop — were cropped to something else, but most of the producers he works with were half-finished seeding as of May 20.

“I wouldn’t say anyone is anywhere close to hitting the panic button yet.”

• From the Grainews website: Know when to apply fungicide

Weeds and diseases

But with seeding nearly done, producers will need to start thinking about the growing problems they’re likely to face because of the cool, damp spring, which also delayed pre-seed burn-off.

“If pre-seed burn-off of weeds did not happen, then you have to try to get them after seeding but before emergence,” said Whatley. “If that doesn’t happen, there will be a problem with too many weeds in the crop.

“You’d have to get in there pretty quick with post-emergent, and with all the other work that has to be done, that’s a little difficult to do sometimes. There could be a little bit of extra weed competition this spring if the burn-offs didn’t work out right.”

Disease pressure could also hit harder in a year like this one.

“In many parts of the province, we’ve had three to four years of cool, damp springs and higher-than-average disease,” said Whatley. “There’s a fair bit of disease out there waiting to germinate.

“This cool, damp spring, especially for a fungal disease like ergot, will leave the cereal crops at risk again, if preventive measures aren’t taken.”

Scouting for disease will be critical as the crops start to establish, said Bergstrom.

“If your crops are having to emerge with those kinds of conditions, scouting them for any potential problems obviously takes on greater importance,” he said.

“You want to make sure you’re vigilant in doing what you can to protect the crop as it tries to establish.”

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