News From Saskatchewan 2015
It has been a very interesting year in Saskatchewan. The spring was better than the past two years for getting crops into the ground in a timely manner because there was not as much surface water in many areas. However, after seeding, concerns over dry soil conditions spread across the province. In many areas, rains didn’t come until mid-to-late June, leading to uneven crop emergence. In other areas, excess surface water continued to be a problem.
In Northeast Saskatchewan, seeding progressed quickly because there was not as much snow last winter and spring rains were minimal. Forage seed crops suffered from the drought. Some perennial ryegrass crops suffered winter kill. Hard frosts at the end of May caused slow crop development, especially in the grasses. The summer was fairly hot and we received some regular rain that caused some crops to lodge and second growth to start. Sporadic rains in August caused delays in the grass seed harvest but by the second week in September, most of the grasses had been harvested without too much shattering loss.
Grass seed yields were below normal to normal. Clover seed crops established well last year and they have been looking pretty good this year. Let’s hope we have good weather to get them off.
The SFSDC Board held a meeting in July and welcomed Leanna Rousell, as an ex-officio Director. Leanna is the Executive Director of the Saskatchewan Forage Council. Thank you to Leanna for joining our Board.
SFSDC has worked with the Northeast Agriculture Research Foundation (NARF) to carry out much of our research program for the past three years. We are also working with the University of Saskatchewan this year to expand our minor use data collection program. We want to thank NARF and the U of S for this collaboration, as well as Saskatchewan Agriculture and their ADOPT Research Funding program for their support.
The annual Forage Seed Information Workshop and the SFSDC Annual General Meeting will be held on Wednesday, December 2, 2015 at the Evergreen Centre in Nipawin, SK from 1 – 4:30 PM. There will be speakers on forage seed research, crop production and a market update. There is no charge and refreshments will be available.
Hope you can make it to the Grower Workshop and AGM in December!!