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Mother Nature seems to really have it out for farmers in southeast Saskatchewan this year. After flooding and excessive moisture that made it either incredibly difficult or impossible for farmers to seed, very dry conditions have been adding extra stress to crops. A devastating hail storm hit some areas of southeastern Saskatchewan on Aug. 6, which resulted in up to 100 per cent losses of crop for several farmers north, east, and south of Weyburn.

For normal precipitation the Weyburn area received 36 millimeters and the Ceylon area received 15 mm. The Weyburn RM is currently third provincially with total rainfall of 443 mm since April 1.

The clear, sunny weather in some areas has allowed producers to begin harvesting crops. At this point one per cent of field peas are off, 13 per cent of fall rye, 10 per cent of lentils have been combined, and four per cent of the canola has been swathed. Crop conditions are varying from area to area, as the different parts of the southeast have been affected differently by the weather. Russell Leguee was out swathing his lentils on Thursday, which are in quite a poor condition this year.

"The lentils are in pretty poor condition right now because of the moisture. The durum and canola are also in pretty poor condition after all the moisture we had here," said Leguee. "We'll probably see about 30 per cent of the crop yield that we normally do this year. We only managed to get about 25 per cent of our acreage seeded. It won't be a big year for us, but when things started in the spring we knew it wouldn't be good."

Leguee, like many southeastern farmers, did not manage to get much seeded this year due to the moisture. Just because they didn't get things seeded doesn't mean that the farmers don't have work to do. They still must tend to their unseeded land for next year.

"We're spraying the summer fallow for the second time now. We're also disking, cleaning up ruts, and weeding the fields where it's needed. On that front things are going pretty good," said Leguee.

The excessive moisture caused a great deal of problems at the start of the year, and now a lack of moisture is causing issues in areas. Topsoil moisture ratings on croplands are being reported as six per cent with a surplus, 73 per cent have adequate moisture, and 21 per cent are reporting a shortage of moisture.

One crop that is thriving this season is hay. Ninety-eight per cent of the hay crop has been cut; 81 per cent has been bailed or put into silage. Ninety-four per cent of the hay crop is being rated as good or excellent quality, and the remaining six per cent is being rated as fair.

The area around Creelman and Fillmore is one of the areas where hay crops have been doing well. Marcel van Staveren conducts his farming operations in this area, and despite farming canola instead of hay he is still having not a bad year.

"We haven't had any hail to my knowledge and we've been fortunate that we've avoided the heavy rainfall this year," said van Staveren. "We started swathing the canola last week. Some of it is getting pretty ripe, but the moisture (Thursday) night helped. Our main goal this year has been trying to get the water table down so we can grow more next year."

Despite being in the early stages of harvest the van Staveren farm was also hit by the floods this year.

"On average it looks like our yields will be down 30 per cent. Our fields have the Holstein cow look where there's bare patches, some are really thinned out, and some look fine. The bare patches are where we got flooded, but it looks like someone let a cow loose in the field," said van Staveren.

Van Staveren has some canola growing the conventional way as well as a volunteer crop that doesn't have fertilizer. The volunteer crop has a shorter life span, and they were not able to begin harvesting it in time. Van Staveren estimates that they will be able to combine 80 per cent of their canola crop this year.

"At this point we should be done harvest by Sept. 15 if Mother Nature cooperates."