The first projection for seeding in 2003 was released by Saskatchewan Agriculture and Food on Tuesday, showing provincially farmers are intending to increase the number of acres they will seed this spring.

Saskatchewan farmers are planning to seed a total of 34.6 million acres, a four-per-cent increase over the 10-year average, and one per cent more than last year.

Along with the plans for seeding acres are the plans for what to plant, and extension agrologist Elaine Moats said farmers have a good idea now of what they would like to plant, but these plans may change some as we get further into spring.

One of the favourite crops in the Weyburn district is durum, as it grows well here, said Moats, adding, "Cereals are reasonable crops if you're concerned about grasshopper damage. They're easy to monitor. There was a little more optimism for spring wheat compared to other years."

A crop people would like to grow more of are lentils, said Moats, because the prices have been improving in the last few months, but the overall concern is they are susceptible to grasshopper damage.

"It could be fairly expensive to struggle with a grasshopper problem on lentils. They're difficult to monitor because they like to eat the blossoms. The leaves may look intact, but meanwhile the blossoms are being eaten," said Moats, adding some people will also consider how bad the grasshoppers at harvest time last fall. Another crop which fills the same space in the crop rotation are peas; while they can be susceptible to grasshoppers, given a choice they will often avoid this crop.

There is a lot of interest in this area for growing mustard and canola may see an increase in acres this year, as well as a continuing interest in growing flax.

Province-wide it is expected summerfallow acres will decrease slightly, but Moats said this will depend on what weed problems a farmer had in a given field last year. Specialty crops have been taking up some of the acres usually put over to summerfallow, she noted, and tame forages have increased significantly in the last few years.

Soil moisture is looking better than it was, particularly after the snows in early April. An upgrade on soil moisture conditions will be made when Sask. Ag and Food makes some tests at the end of April in the area.

Winter precipitation from Nov. 1 to March 31 was near normal-to-normal, says Sask. Ag and Food. The Yellow Grass area received between 100 and 120 per cent of normal precipitation, while the Weyburn area was between 85 to 95 per cent of average; this was prior to the heavy, wet snows which fell in the first week of April.