Farmland could use April showers, expert says
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A slow thaw and some steady rain is what is needed to recharge soil moisture this spring for the farming season in Westman, according to a federal agroclimate specialist for the prairies.
Westman is has below-normal soil moisture levels and would benefit from some April showers, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada agroclimate specialist Trevor Hadwen told the Sun in a recent interview.
“We’re going into the spring drier than normal, but with optimism that we can recover during those early spring rainfalls,” Hadwen said. “It’s not at a level that we would really want. It’s not ideal — but it isn’t super dry either.”
The situation is an improvement on recent history, however, Hadwen said.
“We are going into the season better than we have for a number of years,” he said. “We’re not so far below normal that we should be panicking at this point.”
The Brandon area received about 84 per cent of normal precipitation for the months of December, January and February, a spokesperson for Environment and Climate Change Canada said. Westman as a region has generally received above-normal precipitation, she added.
Hadwen noted that there is still plenty of time for moisture to arrive ahead of spring.
Even if spring rains don’t pour on Westman, a slow snow melt could benefit soil moisture.
A slow melt will sink into cropland.
“The water tends to melt, and then freeze overnight, and then melt and freeze overnight,” Hawden said. “That moisture tends to get into the soil, much better than if we get a quick thaw, and we see the water lost to run off.”
A slow spring thaw is also what’s needed out in the Souris River Watershed District, general manager Dean Brooker said. The area would benefit as the earth is quite dry in areas.
“A large portion of our district is moderately dry to extremely dry,” Brooker said.
Chuck Fossay, a crop farmer out of Starbuck, said that his area has been treated well by winter. Looking ahead, he also wants a slow thaw in his region to prevent flooding, but predicts the existing snowpack won’t pose as a risk like it has in past years.
“Unless we see a lot of snowfall over the next four-to-six weeks, I don’t expect to see a lot of spring flooding,” Fossay told the Sun. ‘I think the winter has gone about as good as we could expect.”
While precipitation has been good in the Brandon area, Hadwen said, recent weeks of above zero temperatures have shrunk the snowpack, and the available moisture, in some areas.
Evaporation and sublimation happen during these warmer spells. Some of the snow would have evaporated into the air, rather than melted into the ground.
The Government of Canada’s seasonal forecast for February to April calculated that Brandon has a 26 per cent chance of receiving below-normal levels of precipitation, a 33 per cent chance of normal levels, and a 40 per cent chance of above normal levels.
» cmcdowell@brandonsun.com