For the week of June 24th – July 1st
Yet another week of wet weather! Quite the change from the last couple of years. By this time last year the crop was already showing signs of moisture stress, especially in the north. We ended up with between 30-45mm of rain through late Thursday into Friday. This system was a little more graceful – instead of dropping that full amount of moisture in an hour, it was a steady rain over 12-14 hours. It still lead to more pooling of water in low areas, especially in the areas we had 70mm+ the week before. The ground is getting close to saturation in places, hopefully we can get some warmer weather and some sun!
With all the cool and wet weather, we are sitting between 10-14 days behind normal for crop maturation. Fungicide spraying usually starts just before July 1st – looking like we will be closer to July 8th for the first fields and mid July for the majority.
Overall crops look to be in good shape – especially the cereals. Canola is hit and miss – the fields not hit with hail have really come on strong, the fields that were hit with hail are recovering but are noticeably weaker.
This next week looks to be on the cooler side again – not as cool as the last few weeks – with highs in the low 20’s, and chance of showers. The longer range forecast for the following week (week of July 8th) is for warm to hot temperatures – highs approaching 30C and overnight lows around 20C – this will would be a nice change and could help speed the crop back up!
