Farmers across Saskatchewan will be hoping for some more consistent weather as the calendar reaches the “official” start of summer.
Weather throughout Saskatchewan has seen everything from record-breaking temperatures to hailstorms to tornado watches and heavy rain and winds.
Gainsborough-area farmer Lee Stanley says while his farm has missed most of the severe weather, the wind has really been hampering the production of some crops.
“Right now, because everything is so late, we’ve been trying to get our in-crop herbicide applications done. It’s very frustrating with the wind blowing every day,” he explained.
“You can’t go (with equipment) if the wind is above 20 kilometres per hour; you risk damaging someone’s crop or wasting your own product. You need the right weather to do it.”
Meantime, the weather near Rosetown in western Saskatchewan has been encouraging for Kevin Krchov and his farm.
“We were about a week away from a crop failure and now we actually might get a crop. It’s been good news,” Krchov said.
He adds the inconsistent weather has led to some frustration, but noted it isn’t the end of the world.
“It’s windy every day and no rain, so it’s kind of been annoying,” Krchov stressed. “It’s hard to spray the crop when it’s windy and the crops are at the point where they need to be sprayed.”
While it was a late start to the season for farmers in the southern part of the province, Stanley is hopeful severe weather can stay away and farmers can go about their business.
“Our forecast so far doesn’t look like huge amounts of rain and they’re talking about mid-20s (in terms of temperature), so it seems to be a different climate (than earlier),” he said.
Stanley feels that despite the weather being on and off over the last month, it has evened itself out for mostly everyone.
“We deal with it every year. The cattle guys suffered badly this spring and they’re laughing right now because they got a heck of a hay crop right now. It all evens out at the end of the year,” he said.