A weather and crop specialist with CWB reports prairie farmers are expecting to plant about the same number of acres this year but more of those acres will be seeded to oilseed and pulse crops and fewer to cereal crops.
Although prairie farmers have gotten off to a slow start this planting season, similar to that of last year, spring seeding is expected to be fairly general across western Canada within the next week or so.
Bruce Burnett, a weather and crop specialist with CWB, reports it appears there will be more oilseed and pulse crops planted this year than last and fewer cereals.
Certainly we got an idea from statistics Canada about farmers’ seeding intentions.
Firstly it looks like they’re going to plant a similar area to last year in terms of the overall planting so we expect another large area in terms of planted crops.
There’s a general trend essentially away from wheat and durum and other cereal crops into things like oilseeds, especially crops like flax and pulses are expected to see some significant increases this year.
The main factors I think certainly have been relatively strong oilseed prices as well as the fact that we’ve seen prices at reasonable levels for pulse crops.
Fertilizer costs are probably at the forefront of a lot of farmers’ minds right now too so that has resulted in an increase in the pulse crop area.
Burnett says moisture reserves throughout western Canada look good.
He says there had been concern over dry conditions in the northern prairies but winter snow and timely spring rains have dramatically improved the situation.
