For the week of April 28th – May 4th
What looked to be a possibly a later start to planting, ended up being right on average for start date. The weather has been abnormally warm, and with the help of sunny days with strong winds, the snow melted quicker than we thought. We went into winter with very dry soil conditions, and the water has soaked in with not much pooling up.
The past couple of years we have done a “soft start” – we take each drill out and get them to do a couple of fields a day or two early – and work out any issues that always seem to pop up at the start of the season. This year was no different – a few minor issues, but this gave us the chance to get them all diagnosed and repaired before the big push. We took Sunday off, and this morning we are starting our shifts.
Soil conditions are good for now, although it is amazing how quickly the seedbed is drying out. We have 4 soil probes that we install – one in the south, one in the middle part and two up north. It will be interesting to see what the subsoil moisture conditions are like – how much of the abundant snow we had over the winter was able to soak in vs run off.
Weather looks to continue to be on the warm side for the remainder of the week – some days are looking like 30C – hoping this is just a warm spell, rather than a sign of things to come!
