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SOUTHEAST AGRINEWS, FRIDAY, MAY 21, 2010
Another season’s promise going into the ground By Norm Park Of The Mercury What are southeast Saskatchewan producers putting in the ground this spring? It appears as if canola is going to be a popular decision and there could be a lot of lentils cropping up later this year while peas are still a question mark. Those predictions, along with a few others, were offered by crop specialist Elaine Moats from the Ministry of Agriculture’s Weyburn office this past week. “Canola is going in because of prices and consistency,” she said. “Flax is questionable, but it should or could hold its own or even see a slight increase in spite of the disease questions that have been raised in Europe. But the U.S. is the bigger buyer, so flax will be around.” Moats said that southern Saskatchewan farmers will probably seed a lot of lentils this year since prices for that product have been strong for the past two years and there is a continuing demand coming from India. “Some farmers locked in good prices already and our area of the province is considered a good one for growing lentils and that area has expanded because of improvement in breeding that allows us to get those crops into the brown and black soil zones. Lentils usually do a good job in poorer, dryer soil zones like we have here and in the southwest, but now it looks like that zone can be stretched a bit,” Moats added. The agrologist said “now peas could be interesting to watch. I really don’t know which way they’re going around here. There
could be some last minute decisions made.” She was much more confident on where hard red spring wheat was going … and that was up, at the expense of durum wheat where the acreage will most assuredly be down this year, due largely to poorer prices. “There is a high inventory of durum around the world and Canada exports durum, so if we have a lot left over, that means everyone has a lot left over,” she said. There will also be a cutback in the acreages sewn to canary seed. That crop has been in expansion mode for the past two crop years, but not this time around. Again that’s due to carryover. In the area of other specialty crops, Moats said their office has received a number of calls inquiring about sunflowers. The problem here is locating varieties suitable to the area. There has been a shift in demand for sunflower oils and types and the sunflower growers have generally been able to make those changes without having to get into genetic modifications. No. 63A21 variety sunflowers provide the standard oils. The market has swung away from that lately while most companies in the sunflower seed business produce that variety. New varieties are being experimented with but the jury is still out as to whether they’ll work in this region. Moats noted that “the field days in the southeast might prove interesting in terms of sunflowers this year.” Soy beans are creating some interest with a few producers. The growing stages for them are shortening up, make it a more convincing crop to try. “We’ll probably see
some increased numbers with soy beans. The attraction is the fact that there is a world-wide market.” Field beans are another story though. “There is some challenge in growing them profitably. Other crops get
some crops generally seen as needing greenhouses to make them work, might find a home in local fields. If less expensive heat sources can be developed over time. If it is, then look for tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers in
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The maturity and growing season is being affected by the volcano eruption. The ash is drifting over a very productive area. It brings cooler temperatures and that means delayed maturity. We saw it here a couple of decades ago when Mount St. Helens erupted and put a cloud over our North American crops,
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- Elaine Moats
better prices so field beans have been superseded lately by the others. They can also be a risky crop,” Moats said. Global events will bear down on some production this year. What started out as a pretty good year for crops around the world, has now gone sideways in some regions. The volcanic ash issue from Iceland is one factor that has switched some crop predictions from positive to negative. “The maturity and growing season is being affected by the volcano eruption. The ash is drifting over a very productive area. It brings cooler temperatures and that means delayed maturity. We saw it here a couple of decades ago when Mount St. Helens erupted and put a cloud over our North American crops,” said Moats. The organic industries will see some interesting developments this year, and into the future, she said as
Saskatchewan fields. “There are provincial greenhouse specialists working on possible partnerships in the future. They’ve looked into solar greenhouse systems. There is a lot of interest in developing them here. I’ve eaten some of these products and the taste is unbelievably good. It can be done. It is being done. Besides the heat, there is the problem of access to markets,” said Moats. “But from here, we could easily ship into Manitoba, central and northern Saskatchewan cost effectively,” she said. “But you know, so far we don’t have people who have greenhouse production as part of their culture. We have large dirt farms here. Once in awhile you’ll see an organic farmer try to pursue some greenhouse crops and usually greenhouse crops are organic. It becomes a matter of the way they manage their system. “They can control in-
sects with other insects, things like that, that other farmers don’t deal with. When you get into the subject of dwarf cherries or saskatoons for instance, there is a tremendous business there. The value of their crops exceed the value of the traditional crops per acre, but you need people to do it. It can be labour intensive come harvest and we’ve come to rely on bringing in crops using just a few people,” Moats said. The crop specialist then looked at moisture conditions in the southeast sector, noting that they were generally pretty good as seeding advanced at a good pace with a lot of the seed now in the ground. There were some variable conditions across the zone. One region received less than 1.5 inches of moisture since early April while others had received between two and three inches. “Seeding progress is in direct relation to the amount
Moose Jaw area and also into the land around Francis and Pangman and areas north of Highway 13. “As of May 11, 18 per cent of the provincial acreage that was going to be seeded, had seed in the ground. Since then the pace has quickened substantially.” Moats said on May 14 she expected that by the time Agri-news hit the readers, that mark would be well past the 20 per cent point overall and probably closer to onethird to one-half completed in the southeast. “Larger operations, new technologies allow producers to seed 24 hours a day now. They have newer, better lighting systems for the equipment. The risk is operator fatigue and safety. We just hope farmers will be careful. They shouldn’t be seeding or harvesting past the point of exhaustion because that’s when errors in judgment are made and accidents happen.”
EWF Prize Puppy
Maurene Kayter enjoyed a few quality minutes with one of the two purebred Labrador puppies that were featured as part of the auction in the annual Estevan Wildlife Federation’s fundraising dinner this year.
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