Seeding all but completed, warm days needed to finish: Crop Report

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Seeding is mostly completed, but several warm days are needed to allow the ground to dry so it can resume for the Lakeland area, the latest provincial crop report said on Friday.

The Alberta Agriculture and Forestry’s Crop Report surveyed conditions last Tuesday and provincial seeding is 93 per cent complete, which is down one per cent from the five year average.

The northeastern region, which includes the Lakeland, is all but finished seeding with the major crops all nearing 100 per cent of the acres in the ground.

Some reports of up to three and a half inches of rain were recorded as of Friday with more than poured over the weekend and some unseeded acres are expected.

The remaining spring harvest of 2019 overwintered crop is at standstill due to moisture this week.

Spring seeded cereals are in the early seedling stage of the Zadocs growth scale, fall seeded cereals are in the boot stage, over half of the dry peas have reached the one to three-node stage, while about six per cent of the seeded canola has now reached one to three leaf stage.

Pests are becoming more prevalent, and some areas have reported moderate infestations of gophers.

Pasture conditions (tame hay shown in brackets) are rated as 19 (14) per cent fair, 72 (73) per cent good, and 10 (12) per cent excellent.

Spring thrashed grain samples report the presence of excreta.