A farmer in the Humboldt area says seeding has been smooth sailing but could now use heat to aid crop development.

George Hinz says this month has been the total opposite of the winter, which was drier than normal. 

“If I had to venture a guess I’d say we’d probably had three inches of water already since the snow melted.” said Hinz.

Hinz is about 90 per cent done seeding — just has a half-section of canola left to seed. His crop rotation this year includes hard red spring wheat, durum wheat, yellow peas, and two types of canola – a Nexera variety and a generic variety.

He started seeding on May 9 and was going “non-stop” until May 15, then rain the following day paused seeding for 3 days before returning to the field after May 19. 

“Otherwise, it’s been good going and we can almost go corner-to-corner.” Hinz added.

He figures about 60 per cent of producers in his area are done seeding, 20 per cent are pushing to get done before this weekend and the remaining 20 per cent may still be seeding into next month.

Now, he says, the weather needs to warm up to speed up his crops’ emergence.

“It was awfully cool all last week. We’ve been only 18,19 (degrees) and at nights going down to five,” he said. “Well we need some heat to speed up crop development.”

The only challenge Hinz has had to deal with was the growth of kochia.