Farmscape for May 12, 2017

Saskatchewan Agriculture reports spring planting across the province is variable with some regions facing slow going because of abundant moisture.
Saskatchewan Agriculture released its weekly crop report for the period from May 2 to May 8 yesterday.
Shannon Friesen, a Regional Crop Specialist, with Saskatchewan Agriculture, says 11 percent of the provincial crop is in the ground compared to 1 percent last week and behind the 5 year average of about 16 percent.

Clip-Shannon Friesen-Saskatchewan Agriculture:
The south part of the province has been in the fields for several weeks now so the southeast part of the province leads with 30 percent of the crop in the ground while 18 percent has been seeded in the southwest and it starkly contrasts the central part of the province as well as the north.
The west-central region only has 3 percent in at this time, the northwest and east-central regions have 2 percent and the northeast follows with 1 percent.
Most of the province was quite wet heading into winter.
For the most part our snowpack was smaller than normal in many areas but we did get many spring storms that have actually saturated many of the fields.
We continue to get rainfall almost once or twice a week and, in some cases, that's been an inch or even close to 2 inches.
The southeast in particular has kind of lucked out you could say that they haven't received as much rainfall as the rest of the province this spring however they are dealing with some lack of moisture concerns in some areas particularly because of strong winds as well as very warm temperatures.
For the most part the northeast part of the province and the west-central region are really the ones that are dealing with excess moisture at this time.

Friesen says the hope is that planting progress will pick up.
She says it's been warm for several days and, as long as it stays warm and fairly dry, the bulk of producers should be able to get into the fields either seeding or doing field work.
For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.

       *Farmscape is a presentation of Sask Pork and Manitoba Pork