When was the last time it was dry?

[freewheat]

HEy hedgehog, we are on quite well
drained land with few potholes Until
lately,etc. Most land I farm has no
water to go around, though some I rent
is in the pothole zone more. The trouble
has been overwhelming precipitation. And
steady precip. The kind that is
incessant and with cloudy conditions
eliminating drying on the two days
between rain! lol I have wondered about
tile for some of the land, but then the
neighbors have to all be on board
downstream as well.

[ColevilleH2S]

After the 2001-2002-2003 drought I vowed never to complain about rain. And I haven't since.

In fact as I type, I can look outside my window and see gold falling from the sky. Little puddles of it are forming on the driveway.

Every area has it's issues... It was a long time ago but I remember it like yesterday (dream sequence begins). The guys from the Black soil zone, while I was taking the VocAg course at the University of Saskatchewan, used to look down their well hydrated noses at us lowly Brown soil zone guys and say, "Your organic matter levels are how low? Your average rain fall is only how much!? Why would anyone farm in that shit area? You can't even grow Canola down there. Only morons would waste their time farming the short grass prairie."

Well look WHO'S LAUGHING NOW JERKS! GO SUCK ON A RAIN CLOUD!

(Snapping out of it) Well I'm really not bitter at all am I ;-) Just kidding.

Here's to everyone getting the crop in <u>SAFELY</u> (as I open a beer) cheers.

[sawfly]

no complaints here either.
the 80s were mostly bad except 86

02 planted new pea seed.
combined it because i wanted my seed back. yield 2.5 bushel peas. and 2 bushel grass hoppers. yuck

crop ins. made us combine 400 acres
out of4200 ,on that , wheat yield 7 bushel

i too used to think that we got more rain than the south west. the last 10 -15 years have proven that wrong.

[bucket]

2009

Great year.

[wheatking16]

ColevilleH2S,

I had the exact same experience.

Let it rain.

[$short]

The end of sept 2009 it started to rain. Heck of a
crop that year but we have been soaking wet ever
since. We never finished harvest till into
November that year.

Yep, 2.5 years ago!

[freewheat]

Heck I STARTED combining in 2009 on
November flipping 6th!

2001-2003, excellent years with nice dry
sunshine!!!

[sumdumguy]

The eigthies were really dry for us. In 1980 we
disced down every acre of crop except for Laird
lentils on smf. 82 bad 86 pretty bad 88 a write-
off. 1990 dried out. Dust blowing. Terrible
memories!

[highwayman]

81 dry, 85 drought, 88 drought, 91 swamp, 92
August frost, 02 very good crop, last 10 years
very good crops in southwest/central sask. We
may not always be the top yielders but we will
take the quality hands down. WINK WINK

[fjlip]

IMHO the west/SW brown soils benefited the most with the zero till/direct seeding revolution we all embraced.
Clay holds moisture, our black loses moisture when dry.

Less tillage and snow trapping can conserve limited moisture to make a crop with timely seeding.
Excess moisture is IMPOSSIBLE to work with, delays field work reduces crop potential. Direct seeding in COLDER WETTER stubble covered black soils is a negative to early crop growth.

It's ALWAYS 4-5C warmer to the west/SW than the NE which slows our growing crops.

If wetter black soil areas had any advantage in maximum tillage/SMF, it's shifted to drier warmer areas with direct seeding.
Make sense?