Much of the southern half of the province – from Calgary as far east as Medicine Hat and south to Lethbridge — has received less than 40 per cent of normal precipitation levels over the past two months. The warm, dry weather has enabled farmers to get a head start on spring seeding, but it’s also making some producers nervous. “There’s a lot of concern, especially around the farm community,” said Trevor Hadwen, agroclimate specialist at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. “You’ve received extremely low precipitation compared to long-term normals. You’re looking at a situation that happens probably once every 25 to 50 years.” Last August, the Alberta government declared an agricultural disaster due to losses incurred by heat and dry weather in the early part of the growing season. While late-season rain offered a reprieve for many producers and prevented crop failure, overall yields were below average across the province. And, so far, spring conditions in 2016 are not encouraging. “In this area, there’s probably still adequate moisture I would say, but from Olds on south, they’re getting to the desperate stage,” said Jason Lenz, who farms north of Sylvan Lake in the Bentley area and serves as vice-chair for the Alberta Barley Commission. “And if it stays warm and windy, in two or three weeks we’ll be in the same condition here we were in last year.” Alberta Beef Producers chair Bob Lowe said last year’s drought virtually wiped out the hay crop in parts of east-central and northern Alberta. On his own ranch near Nanton this year, he’s already started seeding — but acknowledges some precipitation would be welcome. “There are no sloughs, there’s no water lying around anywhere,” Lowe said. “There’s no doubt about it — we need a rain.” Hadwen said the lack of winter snowfall can be attributed to the El Nino effect, which is expected to give way quite quickly to more normal weather patterns. However, Environment Canada is still predicting a dry spring, even though it would only take one or two good soaking spring rains to alleviate current concerns about crops. “If we do get that spring rainfall, we’ll be just fine,” Hadwen said. “But we’re not in a real favourable condition heading into spring.” The El Nino effect can also be credited for the abnormally warm temperatures that have some farmers out in their fields 10 days to two weeks earlier than normal. But Kevin Auch — who farms near Carmangay, north of Lethbridge — said it’s not unusual to see frost as late as the first week of May. “Temperatures are coming up and guys are getting eager to get out into the field,” said Auch, who is also the chair of the Alberta Wheat Commission. “But there is some danger in seeding this early in the year, just because of the chance of frost.” Alberta’s Agriculture Financial Services Corporation, the Crown corporation that administers crop insurance and farm income disaster assistance, has paid out more than $440 million to producers so far as a result of hailstorms and severe dry weather during the 2015 growing season. Globally, early forecasts suggest that 2016 will be another year of above-normal average temperatures — likely among the warmest years on record and possibly even warmer than 2015. Source - calgaryherald.com