Spring has been a slow time coming, but now that it’s here, farmers are out seeding their fields, working at times around the clock just so they can have a bit of breathing time before starting on weed control.
Farmers usually want to start seeing in the last weeks of April or the very start of May, according to Jay Byer, assistant director of Agricultural Services at the County of Stettler. The snow needs to be gone and temperatures at a certain point, and the longer farmers have to wait, the bigger the chances there are of a decreased yield during harvest.
It’s impossible to say exactly how the late spring and the delay in seeding will affect farmers because the rest of the season has a large impact. A late seeding with last year’s long, hot and dry summer could still see above-average yields, while an early seeding but wet summer could see below-average takes, Byer said.
According to Byer, the late seeding mostly turns the season into a never-ending grind. Seeding flows directly into weed control which flows directly into pest control which flows directly into harvest, never giving the county farmers a chance to relax and catch their breath.
“That’s really rough on our farmers,” he said.
The longer the wait to seed, the higher the chances of a “perfect storm” of factors that could decrease yields, Byer noted. Plants maturing later, due to a late seeding, may grow into the most appealing stages of growth at the same time pest levels become highest, and hungriest. When seeding can start early, these stages of plant and pest growth don’t always meet up at the same time – plants are more mature than the insects or diseases like at the time they’re most likely to affect the crop.
The early cooler-season crops, like spring peas, and early wheat and hay are going into the ground now, Byer said, since temperatures are regularly staying above three degrees Celsius.
Quinton Beaumont, director of Agricultural Services with the County, said most farmers have, by now, begun seeding and have used the past few dry, warmer weeks to play catch-up. He estimates that as of last week, about a third of the seeding was done. So long as the weather holds, he said he doesn’t think the late start in seeding will affect farmers – though at this point, he’s hoping for a bit of rain as things continue to remain quite dry.