Many farmers in the Brown and Dark Brown soil zones of the Palliser Triangle have spent a few years now looking at the sky and hoping for rain. In some areas the snowmelt went straight to soil moisture and was a big factor in providing something for the trucker to do.
But multiple years with little rain have resulted in many poor crops. The bottom line has taken a beating and something needs to change. In Saskatchewan, crop insurance has been a game changer, but that only lasts so long.
Read Also
Turning excess water into an asset with consolidation drainage
After heavy rains flooded his yard, a Saskatchewan farmer turned to a consolidation drainage and irrigation project to better manage water on his land. Here’s how it works — and how the WSA and funding help make it happen.
In this piece I will show you some data that may shed some light on the situation. I do not pretend to be able to predict what rain we will get. Anyone who thinks they can is living in dreamland.
Observation well records and what they can tell us
Saskatchewan’s Water Security Agency maintains a network of observation wells throughout the province and all the data is easily accessible on its website.
That network was established in the 1960s by Bill Meneley when he was with the Saskatchewan Research Council. The documentation is complete with an e-log, well completion record and explanation of the geology and nature of the wells. Readers with Henry’s Handbook can check out more details about the famous Bill Meneley.
Observation wells completed in unconfined surficial aquifers produce hydrographs that echo the rainfall events over the long term.
Figure 1 shows Saskatoon precipitation since 1900. The record-high year was 2010 and it has dropped sharply since then, with the past 11 years far below the long-time average.
The University of Saskatchewan’s Goodale Farm is just a few miles southeast of Saskatoon. The hydrograph of the observation well, in Figure 2, shows a net cumulative drought from 1974 to 2004, a sharp rise with the big 2005 snow and large 2010 rainfall and a decline by 2023 to the level of the 1980s.
Folks who read tree rings and tie the data back for centuries say we can expect 30-year droughts in the future. But what does that 30-year drought mean? The observation well data shows a net cumulative drought from 1975 to 2005, but we still grew some crops in that period.
Corman Park is the rural municipality that surrounds Saskatoon, and Figure 3 shows its wheat yields back to 1938. The big drought years like 1961, 1988, 2002 and 2021 show up clearly, but the overall yield trend is still upward.
Swift Current annual precipitation and crop yields
In case you think it is a “one-off,” I will show you precipitation (Figure 4) and crop yields (Figure 5) for Swift Current. There is no observation well near Swift Current.
At Swift Current the crop yields are trending upward, even with fluctuations in precipitation. The really dry years such as 1961, 1985, 1988 and 2021 show up in these graphs but overall yield trend is still up.
So, there you have it: some facts to suggest we will still be able to grow crops but, as most farmers know, every year is different. There is no way to predict what will happen in the 2024 growing season.
For 2024, the big thing is that you know your soil moisture situation before you commit the initial inputs such as fertilizer. Many have experts retained to install soil moisture measuring probes, but if those are not available, a soil probe will tell you the depth of moist soil and inches of available water. It is also very valuable to know where the water table is, but that requires a Dutch auger with 10 feet of extensions and a 10-foot PVC pipe.
Here’s to 10 inches of well timed rain from around May 15 to July 31, to make sure the trucker has a struggle to get Grainews read while you fill the combine hopper.
