Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada released their Canadian Drought Monitor Map earlier this month, painting an expected picture of drought conditions throughout Canada, including here in southeast Saskatchewan.
Recent storms have provided some relief for areas throughout the prairies, however more moisture will be needed to help alleviate drought pressure, especially towards the U.S. border.
Read More: Weekend warmth offers respite from stormy nights
Trevor Hadwen, an agroclimate specialist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, comments on the dry conditions that have affected southern Saskatchewan.
“Certainly, that area right along the US border has been extremely dry. Weyburn in itself is kind of right on that border of dry to drought. We’ve seen a number of storm systems roll through that southeast corner and up, so it’s been quite diverse.”
Dry and wet climate conditions typically work on a cyclical schedule, with usually 10 years separating a wet spell from a dry one. The prairies have noticed this substantially, with the last 5 years being some of the driest ever. However, as Hadwen mentions, this year in particular has been incredibly diverse.
“It really depends on the year, and we've had a fairly strange one this year. We started out the year extremely dry coming out of winter. The whole southern portion of the prairies was really dry over the last number of years. So, we were really concerned going into the growing season of what our soil moisture was going to be, what is our water supply going to be. Then, we really got those rains in April and May to really help out things, and then we turned hot and dry again.”
Within the map, there are labels SL and S separated by lines, and they represent regions that drought will affect for shorter or longer. In the southeast, we have a much shorter impact window for drought because soil conditions can recover much faster from drought impacts than the northern more clay-based soil.
However, a La Niña transition is predicted for this upcoming winter, which is expected to bring more snow to the prairies and should help alleviate the drought pressures of this summer and fall. Farmers currently in harvest are probably not welcoming rain as it can negatively affect crop grade and delay harvest.
Although, with the Weyburn area leading the southeast in harvest progress, some farmers may even wish for rain to add moisture and bushel weight to their crops and reduce the risk of fires caused.
You can find more information with maps of agroclimate conditions by clicking HERE: