A Weather and Crop Specialist with G3 Canada is predicting prairie farmers will increase the number of pulse and oilseed acres they plant this spring and decrease cereal acres.
Although western Canada has seen a relatively early start to spring weather, the past week has seen a return to more normal temperatures.
Bruce Burnett, a Weather and Crop Specialist with G3 Canada Limited, says most areas of the prairies have a small amount of snow cover if any and, with more normal temperatures expected over the next 2 to 3 weeks, seeding is expected to get underway by the middle of April in the more southern growing regions, especially southern Alberta and southwestern Saskatchewan.
Certainly it looks as if the planted area, given that we’re having an early start, should be similar to the last number of years.
There’s a few areas that are suffering from too much moisture, especially in Manitoba, eastern Saskatchewan but most of that area should be planted unless we receive some heavy rainfall in the spring period.
So it looks as if we’ll plant similar areas to last year.
In terms of the crop mix we would be looking at increases in the pulse acres, probably a slight increase in the oilseed and a reduction in the cereal acreage in general.
The reason for the increase in the pulse acres is a very strong pulse market this year for both peas and lentils and other pulses so we’re seeing farmers increase the area devoted to those crops. ~ Bruce Burnett – G3 Canada Limited
In terms of livestock feed, Burnett expects a slight reduction in cereal crops suited for animal feed this year, due primarily to the lower net returns on the cereal acres.
He says we see a slight drop off cereals but nothing particularly large in terms of the overall acreage reduction.
