Anyone want to WAG a production estimate after looking at this?

[WiltonRanch]

Is it right they are converting some canals over to pipelines to reduce evaporation and maintenance?

[bucket]

Is it right they are converting some canals over to pipelines to reduce evaporation and maintenance?

Don't know but the WSA guy said they are lining the canals at Outlook and they are at the government's expense.

[bucket]

“And the taxpayer gave them the infrastructure , and the taxpayer is picking up the tab for the liner in the canals. SSRID has a 153 million dollar deficiency list the taxpayers will pick up”


There bucket , fixed it for you
Too many forget who funds the govt

You are very sharp this morning...even government people don't realize their salaries are taxpayer money.

Thank you...I was wondering if anyone could correlate that.

[GDR]

I am surprised with as dry as this yr has been they didnt limit water draws for irrigation.

Irrigation water is melted mountain snow pack. Mountain rivers are quite high from the heat it's all melting faster, the dams are overfull.

[jazz]

Is it right they are converting some canals over to pipelines to reduce evaporation and maintenance?

There is no way a pipeline can compete with a canal for volumes unless they are planning their own storage on site to go along with it.

Irrigation water is melted mountain snow pack. Mountain rivers are quite high from the heat it's all melting faster, the dams are overfull.

GDR, its not making it down stream. The chain lakes north of me are disgusting this yr. Very little new water into the system. Algae blooms, low O2, dead fish, horrid smell.

[bucket]

Steve Primrose the chairman of SSRID thinks encouraging selling straw off the pivots is such a great thing...

The phucking ranchers are helping pay for the SSRID infrastructure... FFS

Just another guy that lives off government while promoting his own ideas.

[bucket]

There is no way a pipeline can compete with a canal for volumes unless they are planning their own storage on site to go along with it.



GDR, its not making it down stream. The chain lakes north of me are disgusting this yr. Very little new water into the system. Algae blooms, low O2, dead fish, horrid smell.

High pressure pipelines like at Riverhurst require more HP where canals just require the flow with lower pressure and booster pumps...

[bucket]

Irrigation water is melted mountain snow pack. Mountain rivers are quite high from the heat it's all melting faster, the dams are overfull.

Diefenbaker is lower than I have seen it at this time of year and going lower.

60m3/s coming in and 70-90m3/s going out according to WSA.

Although if you are going to build a pumpsite requiring a coffer dam...its cheaper to do with a low lake level and that will be the push now...Low lake level ...lets get it done...will be the battle cry.

[GDR]

Ya could be on the water levels your way. I was just out to the Bighorn Dam and the water is well into the trees on the sides and they have the area downstream of the dam all closed as are trying to lower it. Not sure that there is irrigation off the North Saskatchewan anyhow. I know the smaller local rivers and creeks are low so all makes a difference downstream.

I have a friend that works for the AB gov in the irrigation dept. He said overall usage is unchanged but they did change allocation due to more stuff coming on line.

[helmsdale]

F.I.L. is in a "proposed" irrigation project. Nearly every quarter is listed as irrigable, and the couple that aren't could easily be serviced by pipeline.

Most of this project is Pipeline, with not alot of canal. It seems that the government frowns upon open canals these days... The cost of this baby is going to be astronomical though as it's the highest lift to storage or headwater of any irrigation project in Canada. And that lift has to be all electric now... Not allowed to lift with nat. gas or diesel...

While irrigation would be nice, I look around at irrigation this year and see canola crops that on a respectable year would be considered "it's ok" on dryland, but they're certainly no barn burners.

Remember a hutterite that I was delivering feed grains to saying that irrigation is nice, but on a dry year the costs are through the roof as the pivots need to run near 24/7 in order to keep up with evaporation loss, and even at that, yields are well below what they would be in a wetter year. They were farming somewhere in the neighborhood of 4000ac, with 90% of that being irrigated, and they were looking at somewhere around $100,000/month in electricity costs.

[jethro456]

Just to clarify some things…

Water allocations vary from year to year. As was stated earlier, there was above average snow pack in the mountains this past winter so there is plenty of supply

Most districts are aggressively changing canals into pipeline. The main canal remains but the branch ditches are piped. Some of the pipe is 5’ diameter and can carry a lot of water. The producer bears some of the cost when this happens. The last project cost us $400/ac just to change from a ditch to a pipe. Some pipelines have 5psi pressure and still require a pump but others have 60-100psi because of the elevation drop on the pipeline. If you get high pressure there is a pressure charge/year

[furrowtickler]

I sometimes wonder if the people putting out these estimates even look at the crops. These maps tell the truth it’s bad… real bad.

yields so far here in this area
Peas 20 ish
Lentils 15 ish
Barley 35 , very light
Fabas will be a right off now

First bit of wheat just north of me .... 12 bus

All indications from that does not bode well for canola

Also the past 15 days hail has hit some of the better areas like SW of the Battfords and NW and north of here .
Some had poor crops but there was some decent crops west of here .

[seldomseen]

Talking about water levels does anyone know if Quill Lake is dropping?

When I was young you could drive to Regina on highway 6 and you did not even know there was a lake there. Couple years ago it felt like the highway went right through the lake.

My guess is it will take along time to get back to the 1980 levels.

[helmsdale]

Talking about water levels does anyone know if Quill Lake is dropping?

When I was young you could drive to Regina on highway 6 and you did not even know there was a lake there. Couple years ago it felt like the highway went right through the lake.

My guess is it will take along time to get back to the 1980 levels.

Something to chew on... quill lakes were nearly at breach level which hasn't been the case for a LONG time. Seems to indicate we're somewhere in the neighborhood of extremely wet historically.

If this is currently a "wet cycle", what does a "dry cycle" look like? Does it make palliser's time here look wet by comparison?