Reading Time: 2 minutes Reuters — A cold, wet start to California’s winter has dumped nearly five feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada mountains, state water experts said Wednesday, fuelling hope that 2016 will bring enough precipitation to help offset four years of drought. Snow surveyors headed to the mountains in Phillips near Lake Tahoe on Wednesday for […] Read more
Deep snow in California mountains offers hope in drought
Prairie crops had a bit of everything in 2015
Drought in the western Prairies had a lot of people concerned about production last season, but the latest information suggests the crop was bigger and better quality than expected
Reading Time: 5 minutes You can see it in the numbers — the StatsCan canola numbers that is. In August the agency predicted 2015 canola production at 13.3 million tonnes. By October that number had risen to 14.3 million tonnes and one industry watcher says it could be headed even higher. David Drozd of market advisory Ag-Chieve told Country […] Read more
Drought to shrivel Ukrainian wheat harvest in 2016
Reading Time: 2 minutes Kiev — Severe drought across half of Ukraine has hit winter sowing and could sharply reduce the country’s 2016 wheat harvest, a senior state weather forecaster said on Monday. The drought, in which the central Dnipropetrovsk region suffered its driest autumn in 50 years, could lead to a 20 per cent year-on-year fall in the wheat […] Read more
Watching for rain in Australia
Warren Hobson’s reservoir is built to hold 18 feet of water. There’s one foot left
Reading Time: 5 minutes The farmers were smiling. They were attending one of this country’s premier machinery expos in Gunnedah, New South Wales, and the weather forecast was calling for widespread rains across the region. In Australia, that is a reason enough to smile. Rain in this country is a precious and sometimes scarce commodity. Even a few millimetres […] Read more
India’s drought a bonanza for Canadian pulse growers
Reading Time: 2 minutes Winnipeg/Mumbai | Reuters — Prices for Canadian pulses typically ease toward the end of the year but a recent dry spell in distant India, the world’s top producer and consumer, is driving them up. Back-to-back drought years for the first time in three decades has eroded India’s output of pulses and boosted imports. Global prices […] Read more
Drought exposes cracks in Australia’s acclaimed water market
Reading Time: 3 minutes Sydney | Reuters — A pioneering Australian scheme to improve the management of water in the world’s driest inhabited continent is facing its first real test as an intensifying El Nino threatens crops and builds tensions between farmers and environmentalists. The three-year old management plan for the Murray-Darling basin, an area twice the size of […] Read more
Western Prairies see low yields as harvest ramps up
Reading Time: 2 minutes CNS Canada –– This summer’s erratic weather has taken its toll on plant development in Alberta and parts of western Saskatchewan, according to crop-watchers in those areas. “We have heard that dry conditions have caused plants (peas) to slough off or have the tillers dry off and have lost those heads,” said Barry Yaremcio at […] Read more
Look to crop insurance first: Ritz
Reading Time: 2 minutes While many crops across Western Canada are withering under intensifying drought, Agriculture Minister Gerry Ritz says ad hoc programs are not the answer should producers require assistance. However, tax deferral will be available for affected ranchers. “We don’t need ad hoc (assistance), we’ve got a very comprehensive system of business risk management,” said Gerry Ritz, speaking […] Read more
Only upside to drought? Less spraying and less risk of crop diseases
But diseases like stripe rust, tan spot, or sclerotinia could be an issue if there’s been decent moisture
Reading Time: 4 minutes This summer’s dry growing conditions in Alberta have at least one silver lining — lower levels of disease in fields. “In those areas that have had very little rainfall this summer, you’re probably looking at limited development of diseases,” federal research scientist Kelly Turkington said in a July 6 interview. “Of more concern would simply […] Read more
Russia, Ukraine may cut grain crop forecasts as temperatures rise
Reading Time: 2 minutes Moscow/Kiev | Reuters — Major Black Sea wheat exporters Russia and Ukraine may cut their official 2015 grain crop forecasts as recent hot weather has raised the risks to plants and rains elsewhere have delayed the harvest and dented quality, farmers and officials said. Russia and Ukraine’s agriculture ministries have said if hot weather persists […] Read more
A message from April Stewart, Country Guide's Associate Editor
