Farmers facing arctic blast in east, dry weather in west

Unusual weather this spring is bringing more snow to some parts of the country and nearrecord high heat to other regions. In both cases,farmers are concerned about the impact the weather will have on the food they hope to grow this summer.

Mild weather this winter affected ice wine harvests in Quebec and Ontario. The cold weather arriving this month is not only covering towns and cities with snow, but alsothreatening some agriculture such asapple crops on the east coast of the continent.

Blame the dreaded polar vortex for extending the winter conditions into April.

On the other side of the country, conditions couldn't be more different. On Friday, patios were filled in Calgary with patrons soaking up the sun witha highof 23degrees.

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"Often times you'll see these big waves in the jet stream and sometimes they become very pronounced," saidCBC meteorologist Jay Scotland."If you have a big ridge of warm air over one half of the country, that often means you'll have a big pocket of cold air or big trough on the other.

"That's what eastern Canada is experiencing right now."

Since the start of the year there has been unusually warm weather across the Prairies.It's also been dry. Already 30 Alberta municipalities have fire bans or restrictions in place.

Dry winter leading to dry spring

A lack of moisture is forcing some farmers to postpone spring seeding, change their crop plans, or plant deeper in the ground.

Generally, moisture levels are below average across the Prairie provinces. Concerns are more pronounced in Alberta and Saskatchewan.

"The most concerning area of Saskatchewan is likely the southwest," saidTrevor Hadwen, anagroclimate specialist with Agriculture Canada. "They didn't receive a whole lot of moisture over the winter with exceedingly warm weather."

In Alberta, particularly dry areas include from Calgary to the U.S. border and the area southeast of Edmonton around Camrose and Wainwright.

"Not as much snow this winter and we haven't had much moisture since January snow or rain," said Greg Stamp, a seed farmer in Enchant, Alta, about 200 kilometres southeast of Calgary."We're having to seed quite a bit deeper than normal because we're concerned we won't get any more moisture coming."

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Stamp has already planted 20 per cent of his crops, but other farmers in his area are waiting until the end of the month when irrigation becomes available, to start seeding.

'You can think of soil moisture as money in the bank. You may not need that money depending how thepaychequescome, i.e. the rains.'- Ralph Wright, Alberta Agriculture

"I'm concerned, we've got a few fields on dry lands where we are considering changing crop plans a little bit because we don't want to seed into dry dirt and hope for rain," he said."Last year, that didn't pan out very well."

Alberta was hit with adrought last yearcausing atleast nine different counties throughout the province to declarestates of agricultural disaster. Manyareas received less than 50 per centof normal rainfall levels. Many ranchers were scrambling to find feed because of a shortage.

Spring rain needed

During this past winter,some areas in southern Alberta experienced one in 50-year lows for precipitation with 50 to 60 mm of lost moisture, according to Alberta Agriculture.

The situation is not on the scale of a drought, since most precipitation in the province falls in April, May and June. Those will be critical months considering the current dry spell.

"You can think of soil moisture as money in the bank. You may not need that money depending how the paycheques come, i.e. the rains," saidRalph Wright, a soil moisture specialist with Alberta Agriculture.

The El Ninoimpacting Canadian weather won't necessarily bring more or less precipitation to the province, said Wright, who could not find any patterns after looking over historical weather data.

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