Cyclical droughts don’t derail

[Guest]

Need a viable seed in the ground at the seeding deadline in order to be able to collect crap insurance in Saskatchatoon. So no matter how dry it is, have to dust it in and wait at the post office for that $400/acre cheque....

No
If crop doesnt establish
There is SFA
And crop insurance only works for a year or two
No good farmer does that

[Old Cowzilla]

Had 3 drought years in the 80's two back to back. Only thing we could grow was grasshoppers and sandbanks. I guess that's why some of us older guys get a bit gun shy about locking in grain prices in January. Joke was you hoped you combine enough crop for seed next year and round bales were measured in miles per bale not bales per acre. Pay bills with crop ins. checks and off farm jobs.

[bucket]

Pay bills with crop ins. checks and off farm jobs.

Back then you could do it...not many off farm jobs now nor is there many that would pay the bills....and the ones that could pay the bills , it might be wiser to stick with the job and forget about the dirt hobby.

crop insurance won't help much either...

[Herc]

No
If crop doesnt establish
There is SFA

Its established if its sitting in dry dirt, at the seeding deadline and its viable....

[Old Cowzilla]

Wet areas tend to be rather smaller but drought areas can get big and widespread. GRAIN COS watch that very closely. Try buying a hay bale when its dry from Winnipeg to Calgary.

[Guest]

Its established if its sitting in dry dirt, at the seeding deadline and its viable....

You might learn a valuable lesson if you’re banking on that

[shtferbrains]

Had 3 drought years in the 80's two back to back. Only thing we could grow was grasshoppers and sandbanks. I guess that's why some of us older guys get a bit gun shy about locking in grain prices in January. Joke was you hoped you combine enough crop for seed next year and round bales were measured in miles per bale not bales per acre. Pay bills with crop ins. checks and off farm jobs.

2002 the crop came up nice here but never rained till crop was headed out.
Baled Meadow Brome grass seed straw that had 120#N got 1 bale per mile. Looked like time to sell down.
Started raining and everthing tillered out and original growth disappeared under heavy second growth.
Baled 3 bales acre second cut Meadow Brome and all the green oats I could handle till near Christmas when too much snow slipped the belts on the baler.
From no feed to plenty of green but tough.
Never over till it's over.

[LEP]

The prairies are big and diverse. I would say you can call it a prairie wide drought if 80 or more are affected. Even though there are those like Makar that were severely wet.

We were very wet in 2016, 2017 was dry but we have fully recharged soil moisture in the spring so it carried us to an average crop. But the dry weather in 2018 and 2019 were pretty bad even though wasn't 2019 declared the biggest canola crop ever? I don't know, we didn't participate.

We always have the belief that we will eventually get a rain after seeding. Instead of chasing soil moisture deep we will lay seed shallow in dry dirt. It can be a month after seeding but it usually comes.

Long term forecast for this year is pray for forest fires.

[macdon02]

md101

So it’s cyclical or just the case you due for one.

Or subsoil so dry your skittish.

You guys never get that dry you say stuff it leaving it all in the shed I’m not plant8ng?

Canola and legumes often happens here not planted , cereals reduced in acres at time but never a not plant scenario.

Disclaimer talking about my patch not Australia wide. Know plenty of guys if it hasn’t rained by such and such a date they dont plant. Other in dry scenarios seed bone dry foolish in my opinion in ultra low rainfall areas.

Not being a dickhead here but sask3 has far less chance of drought than farmaholic say sask can roll the dice better region.

Is prairie wide drought ever happened ab sask mb

Cyclical, no backyard conditions factored in, 2022 "should" be it. This would be a North American event. There's half cycles involved, it's not as simple as saying it's every 8.6 years. It works based on fractions. So take 8.6 x 1.5 = 12.9 ~. Then you have bigger cycles going back to 1901 and 1961 a 60 yr event. Current market conditions are tracking 1961 to a T. So the 60 yr is 8.6 x 7. Obviously you can get a winter drought that misses the growing season, most don't recognize it as happening. In 2002 we had 2" in the spring and nothing till August long when it froze and got 8" in a one day event. On paper it was "average" rainfall, but the crop was a disaster. Actually Sydney rainfall being excessive is a leading indicator of NA drought. I just use this stuff as a heads up as a possibility it's coming. Check off enough boxes and confidence increases on likelihood of event occurring during critical growing period.

[helmsdale]

Check off enough boxes and confidence increases on likelihood of event occurring during critical growing period.

There seem to be ALOT of boxes getting checked off on all fronts that lead nowhere good...

1) Asset bubbles on nearly every front? Check

2) Unmitigated euphoria in nearly all classes of investments? Check

3) Massive debt overhangs in nearly all categories: personal (check), corporate (check), government (BIG check)

4) (1) and (2) being used to justify even more of (3)... YUP.

Add possible food production challenges, global political tensions, domestic political tensions, and governments that have dropped the ball?

Looks cozy...