Some Sask. farmers' crops 'looking grim' from dry conditions while others blessed with rain

Saskatchewan's weekly crop report lays out a picture of moist fields in some areas of the province and worryingly dry ground in others.

"She's looking pretty grim here right now," Ian McCreary, a grain and livestock producer with 3,200 acres of land, said of his crops near Bladworth, Sask., about 90 kilometres southeast of Saskatoon.

The weekly report released Thursday, for June 13 to 19, said rain varied from half a millimetre in Consul, Sask., in the province's southwestern corner to 65 mm in Ituna, in the province's southeast region, located about 110 kilometres northeast of Regina.

McCreary said farmers on the west side of Bladworth are missing the rain that is keeping other crops well-fed.

As they are now, it's too early to tell if his crops compare to the drought two years ago which, at the time, was considered the worst drought in decades — but without rain, he said it will be a stark reminder of that crop.

If he can get rain, it could provide the rebound he needs for an adequate harvest.

"Oh, we're concerned, no question. Even with good rain, we won't have an above average crop," he said. "If it doesn't rain pretty quick, it's going to be rough."

Some crops outlined in the report are advancing faster than normal because of the province's hot spring, including McCreary's.

Grasshopper pressures a concern: report

Both McCreary and Brett Halstead, a farmer near Nokomis, Sask., and chair of Sask Wheat Development Commission, are seeing some grasshopper activity in their crops but nothing disastrous yet, they say.

The crop report says there are concerns among producers about grasshopper and gopher pressures on the land.

Halstead said his crops are receiving an adequate amount of rain. As far as grasshoppers, he's seeing some pressures on field edges and is in the midst of determining whether he'll be spraying fungicide soon.

He's hearing other farmers are facing a range of activity from very wet to very dry and areas with fewer grasshoppers to others with a lot.

"Even within smaller areas of the province, it's various crop conditions even within a few miles of each other," he said. 

Some areas in the southern parts of the Prairie provinces, including Saskatchewan, are experiencing an infestation among the worst in years, according to Meghan Vankosky, a research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada and co-chair of the Prairie Pest Monitoring Network.

She said the province's recent long, hot summers drag into the fall season, giving grasshoppers more time to lay eggs and a better winter survival rate.

"We're already seeing, from the roads, some wheat fields where the outer edges of the field have no plants because the grasshoppers have eaten them off," she told CBC's As it Happens.

"In a year like this year, where the densities are high, there can be quite a substantial loss of plants which translates to a yield loss later on in the season."

Vankosky said at the moment it's hard to speculate how severe of an impact the grasshoppers could have on crops, but said it's becoming a problem.

Highlights of the crop report

Matthew Struthers, a provincial cereal specialist with provincial agricultural ministry, said that overall, the province's crops look good. 

He noted that the future of the province's crops depend on whether the heat continues, drying out fields across Saskatchewan or soaking them with sought after rain, which Struthers said has been localized.

Soil in the southwestern region has used up the moisture stored from storms in early spring and are now beginning to struggle, he said.

The report said the majority of crops are in normal stages of development, though dry conditions in the west have sped up development in that region.

It also said three per cent of crops have a surplus of topsoil moisture, while more than half (57 per cent) have adequate moisture, 33 per cent are short and the last seven per cent are very short.