‘More and more worrisome:’ Dry conditions persist in Saskatchewan

Farmers are continuing to cope with a dry Saskatchewan spring.

For weeks, farmers have been looking to the sky hoping for any drop of moisture to aid crops as seeding continues.

Southwest farmer and agriculture journalist Kevin Hursh said during a break from his seeder Wednesday that anxiety is beginning to rise.

“There has been virtually nothing for precipitation this spring,” he said. “The top is getting dry and some of the shallow-seeded crops are not going to germinate properly without rain.”

Hursh farms near Cabri, where he said winter snowfall and favourable temperatures have allowed topsoil to retain moisture so far.

Other parts of the province haven’t been so lucky, according to Environment Canada senior meteorologist David Phillips.

From the northern United States to southern Manitoba to southeast Saskatchewan and up to Saskatoon and Lloydminster, conditions remain “bone dry.”

“This is almost a megadrought we’re talking about here,” Phillips said. “It’s been piddly poor since the beginning of the year. (It’s) historically dry — I’ve never seen it this dry.”

Phillips said parts of the province, including Saskatoon, have been “in a water deficit” situation for roughly four years.

“If today or tomorrow it rained half a year’s worth of precipitation, it would only bring you up to what would be normal,” he said.

So far in 2021, Saskatoon has seen about 20 per cent of its usual rainfall at this point of the year.

Hursh said many farmers in the province are used to those types of statistics, and panicking this early in the growing season isn’t going to help.

“We’ve been here before where we thought we’re in a terrible drought reaching the point of no return and then it started raining and things turned out quite well,” Hursh said.

“It’s early in the game, but with each week that goes by without rain in the forecast, it’s going to get more and more worrisome.”

Phillips isn’t expecting any rain for another week, but June could bring those long-awaited rainfalls farmers have been hoping for.

“There’s something about June,” he said. “June is the wettest month in the year. We’re entering what we call the wet season, the monsoon season.”

Hursh said most farmers are not going to change any seeding plans this late into the process.

“It’s almost as if nature has forgot how to precipitate across the prairies,” Phillips said. “I thought this was going to be the drought vaccination you needed, but it turned out to be a placebo.”

— With files from 650 CKOM’s Justin Blackwell