Saskatchewan Planting 81 Percent Complete, Crops Look Excellent

Saskatchewan Agriculture reports, with 81 percent of planting in the province completed, crops are in excellent condition.Saskatchewan Agriculture released its weekly crop report yesterday.

Mackenzie Hladun, a crop extension specialist with Saskatchewan Agriculture, says producers this past week have been hard at work and seeding is now 81 percent complete, just behind the five-year average 0f 92 percent.

Clip-Mackenzie Hladun-Saskatchewan Agriculture:

Crops throughout the province are rated as excellent to good condition.Spring wheat is rated in the best condition with 27 percent of this year's crop being rated excellent so far.This is followed very quickly by barley with 23 percent of the crop rated excellent and peas are also rated at 23 percent excellent.
Producers have been able to get their crop in the ground quite quickly due to some rain showers holding off until this past week however moisture was received throughout the entire province this past week which really helped with getting  that excellent condition in our crops and those newly emerging crops.

This past week, rain was received throughout the entire province in trace amounts or up to measurable amounts.Our highest amount that was recorded this week was 69 millimeters and this was in our Arborfield region of Saskatchewan.A little bit of rain was also recorded in our Eyebrow region with two millimeters but, as I said, trace amounts were received throughout the entire province so this really helped with our moisture levels overall.

Provincially five percent of our cropland has surplus topsoil moisture, 76 percent has adequate moisture, 17 percent is short and two percent is very short.
When we look at pasture and hay land, it's a very similar pattern.Three percent of our pasture and hay land has excess topsoil moisture, 69 percent is adequate, 24 percent is short four percent is very short.

Hladun says we were seeing a decrease in topsoil moisture levels as the season progressed however this week that rain really did help.She notes last year at this time producers in the east were fighting with wet field conditions while producers in the west were struggling with dry conditions so the rain has contributed to a great outlook.