The horseshoe.....

[furrowtickler]

After the drought from 2000 to 2002 into 3 ish I started to look at weather patterns a little closer.
We noticed this pattern 15 years ago happens here 75% of the time. Not as exaggerated as this year but still much the same set up . If it starts to split in the beginning of June it sticks till late summer. We seem to just get barely enough rain to get a crop on average That's when we started to change our thinking on fertility. Using the percent odds we just could not make sense of 100% seed placed fertility. So we started cutting back at seeding to 70% and top dressed according to how strong the blocking pattern set up. This year we barely top dressed at at , also never used fungicides at all . No need if the ground was never wet through June / July.

[seabass]

Furrow how is that canola u seeded with that planter at the low rate doing?

[danny W1M]

I believe in summer weather patterns. Here in SESK we pretty much always know by Victoria Day.
Meaningful moisture always comes form the States for us. It'll take one of three paths for the most part.
1) "our" Montana Lows turn north and head toward Assiniboia/Moose Jaw/Regina, and so on.
2) Come up through Weyburn/Estevan /Moose Mtn. giving us good rains.
3) Follow along south of the U.S. border, eventually making their way into MB.
2010-2016 they took path #2, double and triple the rain we needed, this year it seems they're taking path #3. Crops are good here due to the tremendous amount of reserve and 4-5" of timely rain. Nice, not having to fight the mud with every operation. Will hope the pattern will breakdown after harvest, as we'll need some fall rains before freeze up.

[furrowtickler]

Seabass..... it's looking ok , less plants per m2 has been a good thing this year.
Overall plants are bigger and overall bigger leaves and pods .
The weigh wagon will tell the tale at harvest.
The crop filled in very well and never considered fungicide while others were spraying.
Saskcanfarmer was out and had a look . We had far less moisture than his area but the crop hung in there very well .
Even the seed rate trial down to 1 lb / ac looks ok .
Overall very happy so far 👍. Considering the lack of rain for 5 1/2 weeks during peak vegetative stage .

[furrowtickler]

Watching radar again this morning, it is amazing how when these set up happen rain can actually push away from certain dry areas .

Seabass, I have often tried to figure out the phenomenon, but basically here the only thing that kinda makes sense is the combination of the river and we are in the widest part of the valley between the range of hills north of us and the eagle hills to the south.
Regardless, I agree it would be interesting to figure out why this happens.
We have learned to just live with it and farm accordingly.
Big rent and land prices make zero sense in this trough , sooner or later they will get burnt .... literally.

[FarmerSmuck]

12.8 mm in the Biggar/ Wilkie area yesterday and last night. Not sure it will help much, but nice to see it rain.

[littledoggie]

It has been our experience that RAIN BEGETS RAIN.

[seabass]

Good to hear tbe canola is doing good. We noticed that the fields seeded thinner are way better here as well. The thicker fields are ripening quicker and have way smaller pods. Overall still good crop but could have been better(I think) if was seeded at 3 lbs instead of 4.5. Pretty hard to out guess mother nature.

[seabass]

Good to hear tbe canola is doing good. We noticed that the fields seeded thinner are way better here as well. The thicker fields are ripening quicker and have way smaller pods. Overall still good crop but could have been better(I think) if was seeded at 3 lbs instead of 4.5. Pretty hard to out guess mother nature.

[furrowtickler]

Ya it's near impossible to out guess Mother Nature. The best a guy can do is try to identify patterns over a long time .
Long range forecast models , even sort term ones are almost useless as well when it comes to micro climate phenomenon like that .

Side note - we did get a freak cloud burst on a few 1/4's that dropped 1/2 plus hail two days ago . I call it a freak one because it came from the SE out of no where and was gone in a few miles .
Seems to be the case in years like this