The seeding season is coming to a close as southeast farms have made it through in decent time over the past couple of months. With over 90 per cent of the crop in the ground, producers are expected to be finished up soon, possibly even before June rolls around.
Alameda-area agrologist Edgar Hammermeister talks about how the southeast has fared while farmers were getting seeding done.
"The seeding operations are nearing completion. It'll be in the mid-upper 90s, I'm sure. We've had a good number of days since the big rain event that hit the southeast, and farmers, once field conditions were good to go, they've been hard at it."
With the forecast showing a bit of rain coming in next week, Hammermeister expects the harvest to be essentially complete by the end of the weekend, making for a good end to the season.
The success is all in spite of a very big interruption earlier in May, with a rainstorm which dumped over a month's worth of rain in just 48 hours.
Hammermeister says instead of drowning out any crops, it actually did a lot for those already and soon-to-be planted.
"It was an old-fashioned rain, like the ones that we always longed for. Now, the volumes varied, but it was three to four, even five inches, but it was over a period of days rather than an afternoon, and that really allowed the moisture to soak in and really recharge the whole soil profile compared to having a big rain event and everything would run off into the low spots."
With a new seeding season, one notable change has been a relative lack of soybeans in some areas of the southeast, which has helped seeding progress as those tend to be planted later into the season.
Hammermeister says the southeast is split on how it handles soybeans thanks to geography.
"It's not that there's no soybeans going in, but there's a little bit of a gradient going from the Manitoba border west. You see, typically, more soybeans toward Manitoba, and it's all about rain patterns, and what really helps soybeans build their yield potential is the August rain. If you tend to be dry through August, then soybeans will not fare very well, and farms in those geographies will do better with lentils and peas."
Hammermeister says later in the year, you'll tend to see storms come from Montana and North Dakota stick closer to the border, being more likely to hit Manitoba and those areas closer to the border. This added rainfall, which comes in around August, is exactly what soybeans need, and so farmers around those eastern areas tend to plant more of the crop to take advantage of the weather.
As the seeding season wraps up, Hammermeister wishes the best of luck to all the farmers, with everyone looking forward to a bit of relaxation before weed spraying begins this summer.