CHAT News photo/Chris Brown

By Chris Brown

Silver lining for some

Snow will improve soil moisture reserves for farmers, ranchers

Oct 21, 2020 | 2:44 PM

CYPRESS COUNTY, AB – After a light dusting over the weekend the snow came in earnest today.

Environment Canada is forecasting up to 10 centimetres for Medicine Hat today, with the Cypress Hills expected to get up to 15 centimetres.

More snow is expected this weekend.

Snowfalls before Halloween aren’t for everyone, but anyone working in the ag sector can appreciate it.

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“Any moisture now would be nice because it will help build soil moisture reserves back up,” says Scott Lehr of Short Grass Ranches. “We had some decent rains this summer but the soil profile is fairly empty.”

This week’s Alberta crop report shows precipitation over the past 90 days below normal for most of the region and soil moisture reserves barely at near normal.

Short Grass Ranches has a home base on the northeast edge of Medicine Hat and also has land in Cypress Hills, near Irvine and around Highway 41. Lehr says operations include forage production, dryland green farming, dryland hay production, a cow-calf herd and a backgrounding feedlot.

Moisture now helps get farms and ranches get ahead of next year.

“We don’t typically get a lot of rain in the summer so we need soil on top of the moisture profile to get crops to germinate in the spring and to get the grass going properly and strongly for summer grazing,” Lehr said. “The more moisture in the soil profile going into spring then we need to rely less on larger amounts of rain to get the crops and the grass through the summer.”

Lehr adds the cold weather this week didn’t impact on harvest as most of it was wrapped up beforehand.