Seeding progressing well, despite rain

May 23, 2025, 12:21 pm
Ryan Kiedrowski, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A total of 72 per cent of crops are now seeded across Saskatchewan, which is higher than the five-year average of 60 per cent, and the 10-year average of 64 per cent. Folks in the southwest corner are almost wrapped up, sitting at 89 per cent seeded. Following close behind are producers in the northwest and west-central regions at 81 per cent complete, and those in the northeast at 74 per cent.

Thanks to rains that followed an April 22 snow event, the southeast and east-central parts of the province are below the provincial average, sitting at 63 and 58 per cent respectively.

Jeff Warkentin, COO of Hebert Grain Ventures, noted their seeding operations around Moosomin are almost wrapped.

“It was going really good, we’d be about 75 per cent done,” he said. “We had our pulses and cereals complete, and just started into canola, then we haven’t turned the wheel in a week here.”

Rain delays ground seeding to a standstill, but Warkentin is hopeful that the weatherman might be right for once.

“The forecast looks good, so if we get a couple days of sun, we should be off to the races again,” he said. “If we got another six, seven days in, we’d put it to bed. It would be nice to finish in May here, so we’re hoping in the next two days we get going. Canola goes a little bit quicker than the cereals and whatnot, so we should make pretty good time once we get going.”

Having that canola sit in the cold, damp soil is not ideal, but Warkentin is not overly concerned.

“I think it will be all right, it’s not too cold at night,” he said. “If we get some extreme heat and bake the top, then we could have some emergence issues, but it wasn’t going to freeze where it was in the ground.”

A big snow event on April 22 stopped everyone’s plans, and while snow in April is not unheard of, Warkentin estimates that storm set their crew a week back from when they’d like to begin seeding.

“We were making really good time too once we did get going, so I’d say it’s very close to average,” he said. “I guess it could be worse. There’s a lot of people in the province looking for rain. So, I mean, you gotta pick your poison, which one you’d rather be, right?”

By Rocanville, Rylar Hutchinson is in the same predicament—waiting for the heat to return so seeding can continue.

“Seeding was rolling fairly steady with few hiccups at the start,” he said. “Seeding is at a standstill with the rains we’ve been having. I’d say we’re half way done and we need the warm weather again to finish up.”
As for his views on planting canola, a little later in May is a safe preference.
“I’m not a fan of that re-seed program, so I usually wait until after the long weekend to put my canola in,” Hutchinson said, which this year, looks like a strategy that will pay off.

In the Gerald area, Kevin Hruska was contemplating taking a snowmobile to his land when the World-Spectator last checked in with him. Since that big snowstorm—which arguably saw the largest amounts in the area—the rain also contributed to moisture levels.

“We got two feet of snow, and then we had an inch-and-a-half of rain,” Hruska said. “And now we’re getting rain again. So we’ve seeded six days so far.”
He estimated being a couple days away from hitting the halfway point last week with roughly 22,000 acres seeded so far this year.

“I would say we’re typical of everybody, a third done, maybe a little better, third to half done,” he said, adding he prefers seeding canola by May 25 as a target. “You definitely like to be done the first few days of June, because then the heat’s coming.”

Hruska noted a strip from Langenburg through to Russel is a belt of very wet land that just does not seem to soak away easily.

As for the finish line, he’s estimating 10 non-stop days ought to cap seeding.
West of Hruska, Blake Duchek has been waking up to frost on his land near Atwater.
“It still got down to -2ºC here last night,” he said last week. “I came out about 4:30 this morning, and yeah, my truck showed -2ºC, and the windows were thick with frost.”

Even with those temperatures dipping below freezing and putting the pause on crop development, Duchek’s wheat is poking out of the ground already.

“But this last week here, though, nothing really grew,” he said. “It was cool, and only 5 or 6ºC some of those days there and cloudy all the time. So the wheat was all up, but it’s just sitting there not growing. I imagine with this moisture and heat, it will really take off.”

Duchek estimates being about 65 per cent finished seeding, which was thanks in part to an early start.

“We started to seed, and it was really wet,” he said. “We started before everybody else to get going, and the first couple days were a little bit more of a struggle. Then we got those hot, windy days—well, you were wishing for moisture then already.”

That request was answered in the form of around two inches of rain, which came at a nice slow pace. However, the finish line is in sight as canola seeding begins.
“We’re into the canola for just over two days, we’ve got about another week of canola, eight days, and then we just need two, three days seeding some green feed for the cattle, and then we should be done,” Duchek said. “So, we will have the canola done by the end of the month here, or just before the end of the month, and a couple days doing the cattle feed stuff and be done first part of June, the first couple days.”

Had the rains not occurred, Duchek might be wrapping up already.
“But the ground is so cold,” he pointed out. “When the ground is that cold, a guy shouldn’t be seeding canola anyway until the 20th of May because the canola doesn’t get out of the ground and by that time, your seed treatment is used up. Then the flea beetles decimate the canola as fast as it can come up out of the ground, because the seed treatment’s wore out, and then you end up spraying the canola two or three times after.”

According to last week’s weekly provincial Crop Report, topsoil moisture is quite a bit higher in the southeast corner of the province—rated at a 27 per cent surplus, 70 per cent adequate, and three per cent short. Hayland and pasture moisture content is about the same with most producers in the area saying they are satisfied with moisture conditions, and obviously eager to get back in the field to continue seeding.