Map shows where the Christians live

Prairie moisture 30 day.pdfAs if farmers and ranchers didn’t know it by looking out the window, this prairie soil moisture map from Agriculture Canada tells a pretty graphic story about how dry it is and where, across Western Canada.

This map is as of June 21 so things can change, although I don’t think they have improved considerably. In God’s country, which is the greater Calgary-area the grass is green, but you don’t have to go far in most directions to find drought conditions.

I was talking this week with farmer Charles Schmidt at Chinook, in eastern Alberta near the Saskatchewan border, and wheat and barley are hanging in, but about 2,000 acres of mustard is already toast. Charles figures the soil freeze dried leaving those little seeds little chance of germinating – and they didn’t.

Calgary weather forecasts late last week talked about two or three days of rain ‘ if you have any gardening to get done, get it done Friday because it is going to be cold and wet over most of Alberta’. Charles says they were grateful for a half inch of rain at his farm, but it really isn’t enough to bring the crop home.  Mind you, not far away some people reported 1.5 inches of rain over the same period, so it can be variable.

And as it turned out here in Calgary, I didn’t have to stop gardening. It never did rain.

Further north in the St. Paul area, which is east of Edmonton toward the Saskatchewan border, Stan Harder reports some cattle are on pasture, but a pasture that would have lasted two weeks last year, is now only lasting a couple days.

Stan says some were talking about taking cattle to auction and one auctionmart said don’t bother - no one is buying.

As you look at this map, it is almost surprising to see some green in southeast Alberta and southwest Saskatchewan and then another good area in the central part of Saskatchewan from Weyburn up to Prince Albert and Meadow Lake. Those are obviously the areas where the Christians live.

There isn’t much to say other than the variability in agriculture never ceases to amaze me. Some years prices are good and crops are poor, then we can have near record crop yields and prices on the other end of the scale. At other times cattle and hog prices are decent but feed costs are through the roof. And then there are years when it isn’t worth the trucking costs to send them to market. And then of course there are some years when everything goes to hell.

About the only silver lining I can see at the moment, and it is very narrow, but if you are growing durum wheat this year and it grows, likely protein levels will be high.

But it is only June 24^th today….there is still time for it to start raining and bring some improvement to spirit if nothing else.

For more maps and other information on weather and soil moisture conditions here are some websites to check out.

Ag Canada PFRA  - http://www.agr.gc.ca/pfra/drought/

Alberta Agriculture - http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/acis10819

Saskatchewan Agriculture - http://www.agriculture.gov.sk.ca/crprpt090618

Manitoba Agriculture: http://tgs.gov.mb.ca/climate/

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