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Most people across Saskatchewan might not be happy to see all the snow that’s fallen throughout the province lately, but farmers have a positive outlook on the snowflakes.
“Certainly in terms of moisture, I think most farmers in the province will be very optimistic that we’re going to have a good start to the growing season based on the amount of snow we’ve had and the recent moisture,” said farmer and Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS) president Bill Prybylski.
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“We’ve had more snow than we’ve had for a number of winters now. It’s springtime here so there’s been a nice runoff and hopefully a lot has soaked in,” said Don Connick, who farms just south of Gull Lake.
“We’re looking at a much better situation for spring than for the previous four or five.”
Prybylski said all crops will appreciate the extra moisture from the snow.
“Crops like canola and wheat, for example, are deep rooted would probably benefit more from that soil recharge. It’s all important and it all contributes to our final yields,” he explained.
“I think there’s much more optimism in the country this spring about the weather anyway,” Conncik said.
“For the cattlemen, I think lots of the dugouts are full. When we went into the fall, people were anticipating there might be a real problem with water in this coming year, but now we’ve had enough runoff that I think most of the dugouts are up to par.”
Connick said last spring there was an early start to the seeding season for some farmers because of the lack of moisture in the ground, with some start seeding in April.
He said right now there’s no urgency to get the seeds into the ground because of all the snow.
While conditions are looking ideal for farmers, Prybylski said they’ll still need some help from Mother Nature once the snow melts and they become a lot more dependent on rain.
“Our crops need timely moisture, so we look for the snow melt now to get things started, but those late May, early June rains are very critical to get the crop growing robustly,” he said.
“We depend on a lot of factors with the weather and we depend on the weather for our livelihood. So, we’re looking for some cooperation from Mother Nature on that aspect.”
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